Date: 2007-05-14
From: Dennis Cove Rd., TN

To: Watauga Lake Shelter, TN
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: scattered clouds

Well, I had a restful nite's sleep, but still woke up with the birds, despitethe fact we decided to sleep in. It was in the mid-50's when I woke, and I waswarm all nite. I did hear something little walking around in the bushes, but Ifell right back asleep.I walked up to the hostel and people were all busy and packing or just chilling. Bob will slackpack people over the last big mountain, so some people weregetting ready for that.Before I packed my pack I went thru my food again. I took some out, and a fewother items as well. I'm trying really hard to keep my pack as light aspossible, especially with an irritated left foot.We finally got to hiking close to 11:00 a.m. As much as the hike was lacking inscenery yesterday, today made up for it. We hiked by the Laurel Fork River forsome time, and it is gorgeous. We kept seeing spots we wanted to camp.Then, we hiked down a very rocky steep trail, and came upon Laurel Fork Falls,which was just stunning! The falls aren't as high as Jones Falls, but are muchwider and fuller. We sat there for a good 25 minutes just watching them.Then it was off to our final big climb for awhile. Parts weren't so bad, butothers were almost straight up. Just before starting the ascent, we hiked on asmall rock ledge that dropped off into the river. One mis-step and plop..intothe river you go. There was a bit of rock scrambling today too.I saw my very first rhodadundren in bloom today! Beautiful fusia flowers, withbees already hard at work in them.I stopped for a break and sat for a bit. I hadn't seen Persistent in awhile.Next thing I know, I hear her say, "Hey!" She had sat down for a break about 20feet up the trail, we just didn't see each other @ first! LOL I moved up withher and ate my lunch. My stomach was grumbling and growling a lot, which shouldhave warned me of the things to come. We get to the top of the mountain and start down when YIKES!! I won't get intothe details, but something had not settled well, and let's just say my bodydecided to get rid of it as fast as possible. I'd like to encourage everyone tofind a hilarious monologue by Margaret Cho, called "The Persimmon Diet." Herdescription of one of those "gotta go gotta go gotta go right now" moments isright on. I'm not trying to be gross, but I told ya'll I'd paint an accurate andtrue picture of what life is like as a thru-hiker, and sometimes that includesoveracting intestines that make you unable to hike so all you can do is sitthere for 1 hour and just wait to run into the woods....again. It was prettymiserable, but I took some Immodium AD, and drank the rest of my water.I was very dehydrated though, so I got down that mountain (finally) to findPersistent @ the road crossing. She has been worried about me, and when I toldher what was up, it made her laugh. LOL She was really homesick today. I feltbadly for her.I hiked on and the trail goes to a public beach\swimming ara of Watauga Lake,which was just beautiful. Guess what they had a REAL LIVE bathroom too! LOL Hey, they say the trail gives you what you need! LOLWe sat there for awhile, wishing it was warmer (and earlier) so we ould havegone swimming, but it was 1.8 more miles to the shelter.We moved on, and today was just an unexpected difficult day. Not so muchterrain, just my body feels like it's falling apart sometimes. Just before theshelter, my right knee started doing something weird. It pisses me off to tellyou the truth. I can't seem to get everything working @ the sametime...frustrating. We got to the shelter, and it has very limited camping space. I had no problemfinding a great place to hang, but tent sites were scarce. There's like 4million people here tonite. Everyone is headed to Trail Days next weekend.Fuzzy Monkey gave me some gatorade so I could replace my oh so lostelectrolytes. Nice guy.It's 9:46 p.m., and the temp is in the mid-60's in my hammock. Gotta go waterthe leaves again and get some rest. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. ~Certain