Date: 2015-03-28
From: Muskrat Creek Shelter 

To: Micro hotel in Franklin, NC 
Miles today: 4.0
Weather: clear sky

We woke up to a freezing 17o weather and found 1/4" of pristine snow on everything! Soon everyone in the shelter was frolicking in the snow like children. Some even started a snowball fight and one made a tiny snowman. Soon it was time for breakfast and an extra cup of coffee to warm up. Snail Pops wanted to get off the trail due to missing the wife and soreness so #AlltheWay , Grey Wolf and I walked out with him to make sure he made it OK on the Chunky Gal trail, a grueling 4 mile side trail we hit after a mile on the AT. It took us 5 hours to go 5 miles on that wild unmaintained trail so we were exhausted when we hit the highway with 9 hikers in total who were fleeing the upcoming teen temperature that night which could get down to single digets. We flagged a pickup truck and offered to pay for a ride and got taken to the Microtel in Franklin, NC. It was sooo c,c,cold in the back of the truck. The bed was packed with hikers and their packs. I was sitting on the tool box and so was above the top of the truck and got the full brunt of the wind and the cold. I had to cinch the hood on my jacket and hold tight the bottom of the jacket to keep the cold wind from blowing in. I faced to the back of the truck to avoid facing into the wind. They dropped us off and we each gave some money for the ride. We checked in with Alltheway, snail pops and myself in one room. I claimed a sleeping spot on a cushioned bench in the window. I showered before going to a great meal at a restaurant called FATZ right across the way. The place serves huge portions at a great price and I had a couple of beers while I was there. The others stayed around the hotel while I went to do laundry and resupply at Ingles grocery store. I saw a van that said "Trail Angel" and a woman named Miss. Janet who agreed to shuttle me around to laundry and to resupply. We tried all over looking for an open laundry as the Microtel doesn't have one. We finally ended up doing laundry at the Sapphire Inn while she visited with some of the hikers while I did my laundry. She told me not to tell the clerk that I wasn't staying there due to business rivalry. There was the tail end of a festival going on and I got a free beer while I waited and did laundry. That cooled me off too much so I drank some coffee and a snack from the food truck in the parking lot. I moved the clothes from the washer into the dryer and paid to get it started when it was obvious that they belonged to a hiker. Sure enough some hikers came in and thanked me for it and invited me to their room to warm up as my clothes dried. When the dryer was done I called Miss Janet who had been visiting with some hikers in their room. Then she took me to the Ingles grocery store. The store was about to close in 5 minutes, so one of the clerks walked with me through the store to help me find everything I needed. I finished around 10:30. When Miss Janet dropped me off at the Motel I handed her a folded up $50.00 for helping hikers like myself. I returned to the room and settled in to update Facebook and trail journals and went to bed.