Date: 2017-04-07
From: Dick's Creek Gap

To: Zero day
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was our first zero of the trip, so this will likely be a shorter post about various topics.I spent the morning chilling, reading and enjoying the view from the windows and some coco. I've got "A Walk in the Woods" on my Kindle app, which I think I might read paced to hiking the trail. I read the first couple chapters, up until they hit Neels Gap in the book, and it was fun relating my memories of the places to how they're described in the book.Lookout grabbed a shuttle back to Neels Gap (which has the only decent outfitter in the area) to get a warmer sleeping bag to be better able to handle these (and colder) temperatures in the Smokies (which got several inches of snow yesterday).I headed into town, grabbed a less than mediocre burger (had I known I would've gone to the Mexican place), did my resupply shopping (first ever on-trail resupply), walked through the drive through ATM (couldn't find one for non-vehicular traffic), and got some takeout bbq for dinner before heading back at the hostel. At the hostel everyone was trying to convince everyone else to eat their food, since everyone bought too much and didn't want to carry it. There's so much food in the hiker box that it could easily resupply a hiker or two. I also bought more than I needed to make it the 3 days to Franklin, but it'll get eaten eventually and my pack isn't feeling very heavy right now.Had the chance to catch up with a few friends today via phone, which was nice and started planning for my maildrop in Fontana before we enter the Smokies. We're thinking we're about a week away from there, so I needed to start working out the logistics of my food and we'll need to get our permits (online) for going though the park. Tomorrow we're planning on doing 11 miles (mostly uphill... Georgia makes you work to leave) which will take us into North Carolina and set us up for a longer day Sunday (20mi) which will put us in Franklin on Tuesday. Weather looks great all this week, so not having to plan around it will be a welcome change. Couple of random things that don't really belong anywhere else...Fun fact: Most hikers greet each other with a fist bump (but I've also been on the recieving end of an elbow tap and air-five) rather than a handshake. It's hard to tell when the last time a hiker washed their hands, used hand sanitizer, or showered, so the alternative greetings lessen the risk of spreading germs, which can be a problem in an environment like this with close quarters and dirt.Also, I've been informed (by Lookout) that I'm using the term "nero" incorrectly when talking about the days we reach or leave a town. A nero (near zero) refers to a low milage day, which does tend to occur when you reach/leave a town, but in our case we've been doing full miles into and out of towns, so they don't count as neros. I think the definition we settled on was any day less than 8 miles (at this point in the trip... that threshold will increase as we start doing longer days) is a nero, so in that case we haven't really taken any yet. Semantics, I know, but we have a lot of time on our hands to debate semantics while we hike.Also, just a quick clarification, I was trying to demonstrate this in the writing, but everything about this adventure this far has definitely been type 1 fun (fun to do and fun to talk about). Nothing has been type 2 (not fun to do but fun to talk about), it type 3 ( neither fun to do or talk about). The heavy rain and thunderstorm that spurred us down blood mountain and the snow we got yesterday were legitimately fun. Even hiking though the thunderstorms on Tray mountain in near freezing temperatures was at worst type 1.25 fun. Hopefully those didn't come across as complaining about the weather... this was intended to be a challenging adventure and it's doing a fine job of living up to that so far.Also, I ran into someone who's documenting their hike on YouTube. We actually met Desciple, the legally blind hiker I think I mentioned (but maybe not by name), a couple days ago coming out of Low Gap, but saw him again at the hostel as he was doing a video tour of the place. His YouTube channel is "Not By Sight"* and so you might see a flash of me (red shirt) on the hostel tour video when he posts it and maybe some more of me if we end up in the same campsite as him in the future.* I haven't watched any of his videos and probably won't until I have better internet, so I'm just passing this info along, not necessarily endorsing/recommending his videos.