Date: 2005-03-19
From: Blue Mountain Shelter

To: Tray Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 7.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Holy schnit, what a craaaaazy day. We woke pretty early and headed out, determined to head into Helen and quick resupply, hit an AYCE, the outfitters, and then return to the trail. Our first experience with hitchhiking. So Jake, Raz, Joe and I hit the trail and threw out the thumbs. After about maybe 8 or 9 cars, a truck with a flat bed. So, anxious to get into town and inexperienced with hitchhiking, a dangerous combination in any situation, we jump onto the back of the truck. No walls, no anything to hold onto. I quickly leap into the center of the bed and throw my arm over the toolbox and grab the steel grating that runs behind the truck bed. Jake piles in in front of me and grabs my leg, Raz jumps on next to Jake and grabs ahold of the other leg and the side of the truck. Finally poor Joe jumps in last, and holds onto what he can. We end up grabbing his backpack and he wears it pretty much like a harness. Hrm¢¦maybe the flatbed truck wasn¢t the best idea. We¢re taking hairpin curves at 40mph, holding on for dear life. It¢s cold, and it turns out one of the trucks that had earlier passed us by (with walls on the bed) is behind us, and he appears to be enjoying watching our misfortune. Finally we make it into Helen, which is set up to look like and old German or Bavarian town, so it¢s pretty much a tourist trap. We ask the guy who nearly killed us where the outfitters is, and he says it¢s about a mile in front of us. Half a mile of walking toward the outfitters later, we ask a store owner about the location of the outfitters, and he tells us..it¢s about a mile in front of us. Noting the time and and that the outfitters appears to be an infinite distance away, we decide to scrap the outfitters from our plans.We head back in the opposite direction, pass a Wendy¢s that we had already passed once, and hit the Grocery store in town. There Jake, Raz and Joe pick up a quick resupply and we encounter two school teachers who are amazed by our risky endeavor. We answer a few questions and even sign autographs and pose for pictures for the very nice ladies. That¢s right, autographs¢¦that¢ll be worth about $.75 on ebay in a few years, WATCH OUT. So now that we¢ve resupplied, and inquired about the whereabouts of the AYCE about 5 times with 4 different answers, we scrap the plan for the stealthy buffet and head back to the Wendy¢s.Thru hiking can make anything interesting, especially a fast food place. After grabbing some grub, we are joined by another thru-hiker, Bones. Bones is appropriately named for his lack of anything but skin and¢¦well you guessed it. He informs us that we were lucky to have skipped the outfitters, as they were going out of business and had pretty much no remaining inventory. We fill up on some food, avoid the stares from the locals, and head outside one by one. Now Raz should¢ve been the last one out by about 30 seconds. Four minutes later he emerges from the restaurant, red in the face and chuckling, apparently he¢s knocked the bite valve off of his platypus and hosed half of Wendy¢s down with some water. Too embarrassed to head back in himself, he recruits his fellow thru¢s to help find the errant valve. Wow, sure looks it rained inside of Wendy¢s. There¢s water all over the place, we¢re laughing, the patrons are talking about what just happened, and we scour unsuccessfully for the valve for a minute or two. Aware of our perdicament and still chuckling at the incident, a family enjoying their pre-processed super double mega burgers even volunteer their daughter in the hunt. Two minutes of searching later, a keen eyed lad of about 10 spies the valve from the table, and we are once again on our way out of Helen.Joe hitches a ride solo, leaving Jake, Raz, Bones and I to hitch back to the trail, once again, the thumbs go a-blazin. A quarter of a mile up the road and 20 or 30 cars later, a white pickup truck for some electrical joint pulls up. we pile in, Jake, Raz and I in the back, Bones in the cabin with the driver. Save for a quick wrong turn, the trip seems uneventful¢¦until we get out of the car. Bone¢s probes to see if the driver had any beers in the cooler that was in the back of the truck, when we reply no, he laughs ¢Cause he sure had some up front with him¢. Apparently our friendly driver had a bit to drink today. So one drunk driver and one flatbed ride of hell later, we¢re back on the trail and making miles toward Hiawassee. Yay hitchhiking is fun.