Date: 2005-05-02
From: Tennessee Spring

To: Tennessee Spring
Miles today: 20.4

Tennessee Spring20.4 miles (397.2 total miles)It was another cold one last night. We were glad we decided to set up the tent to keep us toasty. But this morning getting out of the tent was hard. Before we left, I took a big gulp of water, and felt something hard go down my throat. I looked in my bottle and found it full of ice chunks. Yes, it was cold.We headed up immediately over Little Hump. We stopped for a rest and watched a family of deer run across the bald mountain ahead of us. Then we did the long climb over Big Hump. JoAnne was doing better than yesterday, but still not great. We were a little let down when the bighorn steer were not out this time. The clouds were rolling in. We realized this was the 12th day in a row of really cold temperatures. How much more could we take?We came down from the Humps, down much lower in elevation. As we did, we were glad to see the weather get warmer. When I got near the shelter, something weird happened. For the first time in 4 days, I took off my fleece jacket. The sun made an occassaional appearance. And I was thrilled to be hiking in a tee shirt again.Before we left the shelter this morning, Circuit Rider told us about a great diner, and hoped to see us there for lunch. It seemed like many people were going there, and there was even a rumor that they'd let you sleep there for free. So we hiked on down US19E, and got a ride after about a half mile. We had a huge (and cheap) lunch with pretty much everyone from the shelter last night. We decided after our real lunch tha we both felt good again, and could put on a few more miles.The owner of the little diner gave us a ride back up to the trailhead. He was a lawyer (he recently passed the bar exam), and told us to contact him if we had any incidents with the locals. He told us of a recent shooting up here in the mountains. He told me specifically to keep JoAnne witin eyesight. He said one of the crazy locals had hung some barbed wire across the trail at about neck level (whcih he cut down). And finally, he warned that if we carried a gun, we should make sure it's loaded. Obviously it couldn't be too dangerous, as tens of hikers pass through every day. But it was still unnerving, and we kept close with axtra attention to our surroundings.After a big, satisfying meal, we took off. The trail flattened out, and we moved fast. Both of us were motivated by shining sun, a special lunch boost, and fear of being shot at if we stayed anywhere too long. The trail was so easy (from the reroute 3 years ago) that we overshot our destination. We got to a tentsite at 5:00. We wanted to camp in a larger group, and we wanted to be closer to tomorrow's destination, so we kept on hiking. At about 7:00, we found Snowman and Spark Plug eyeing a campsite by a spring. We decided to join them.When it was all over, we are guessing we hiked about 20.5 miles today. Our tentsite is not in any book, so we don't know for sure how far we went. But we are counting it as our 4th 20 mile day. It feels great to be hiking again. That is what we came out here to do. We are both feeling at least somewhat better, and we sure are glad to see the sun. It alos helps to have a big, fat cheeseburger for lunch.