Date: 2014-05-03
From: Franklin, NC

To: Franklin, NC
Miles today: 0.0

Laura and I both slept well and awoke this morning with pretty good appetites.  When we walked out of our motel room around 9 AM, I thought I saw a familiar face at the other end of the parking lot.  It turned  our to be 44 (Steve Crowe) who had just arrived at the Budget Inn - having caught an early shuttle in from Winding Stair Gap. We had a good laugh about running into each other again, and Steve joined us for breakfast at a cute little place in downtown Franklin.  We went back to the outfitter I mentioned in yesterday's journal entry called Outdoor76 around 3:30 for stove fuel, Clif bars, to look at other hiking boot/shoe options for Laura and inserts for Kevin's boots.  The salesman there was very earnest, conscientious and knowledgable about feet and what's best for them, but he was not efficient.  He spoke on and on, using analogies and stories to get us what he (and we) believed was the right thing for our feet.  But, it took well over two hours to get the inserts for me and he convinced Laura that she really didn't need anything.  And get this: it would have taken longer if I hadn't interrupted his baseball pitcher training analogy and said, "I see where you are going with this, but we've been at this for well over an hour and I am running out of time and patience."  He sped things up a bit at that point, but it was past 6 PM before we got out of there.  He did comp us the beers we had there - good stuff.As we left Outdoor76, we ran into 44 ( IRL Steve Crowe). He was surprised that we were just leaving, as he had walked to the store with us earlier in the afternoon, but not too surprised because he had heard stories about the salesmen from other hikers who had been to Outdoor76 earlier in the day.  Steve, Laura and I decided to try Cafe Rel for dinner.  It had been recommended  by the salesman at Outdoor76 as being the best place for dinner in Franklin.  Now you might wonder, after our terribly inefficient experience with that salesman why we would follow his culinary advice.  It basically came down to the fact that, though he was extremely long winded, his advice was trustworthy.  He convinced Laura not to buy a lighter Granite Gear backpack from the store and not to buy new hiking shoes either.  And I felt good about the $50 inserts that I had purchased.  Anyway, we went to Cafe Rel, which, it should be noted, is part of a gas station and convenience mart (see photo).  We laughed heartily as we approached and entered Cafe Rel, but the food was excellent and very reasonably priced.  They didn't serve beer, only wine, but our waiter told us if we wanted beer, we could walk through a door connecting Cafe Rel to the convenience mart, buy it there and return with it since the gas station, convenience mart and restaurant were all owned by the same family. We stuck with wine.  During dinner, Steve and Laura hatched a good plan for our next day.  Laura, though feeling much better, was a bit concerned about her abilities to backpack tomorrow. Steve had been picked up by a shuttle at Winding Stair Gap that morning - 3.8 miles north of Rock Gap where Laura and I had been rescued from on Friday morning.  So, they reasoned wisely, we would slack pack the 3.8 miles from Rock Gap to Winding Stair Gap to make sure Laura was really up to hiking again, and Steve's shuttle would meet us at Winding Stair with our backpacks. If Laura was not feeling well enough to backpack, we would return to Franklin. If so, up the trail we'd go. (The term "slack packing" means to hike a portion of the AT without one's backpack - made possible by shuttle drivers or friends who move the backpacks forward by auto.)  Satisfied with this plan, we returned to the Budget Inn after dinner, packed up our backpacks and went to bed.  Kevin stayed up late trying to get caught up on journal entries :-)