Date: 2012-03-25
From: The Cheese Factory

To: Hiawassee
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Writing to you from a real computer!!! Had the worst night on the trail yet last night. I was freezing cold as I was going to bed so I boiled water and filled my Nalgene bottle while it was still hot and spent the night spooning it. That helped a lot, but the wind was just so loud that it was challenging to sleep. To stay warm, I had to go to the bottom of my mummy bag and pull the drawstring shut. DO IT's tent wasn't doing it for him. He continued to take on water and cut the bottom of his tent so it would flow out and then we strung Tyvek across his door. He slept late so I know he had a rough night. In the morning I woke up and started to boil water but it was so cold that my fingers wouldn't work so we started cooking inside DO IT's tent since it was pretty much destroyed anyway. Packing up was a challenge in the cold so it took us a while to hit the trail. When we were finally hiking, I asked someone what time it was and it was almost 10:00! Oops! We were cutting it close for our longest hiking day. The hike started out easy enough (they all seem to), but my allergies got the best of me and really started to bring me down. I reached an all time low when I had to actually shoot mucus out of my nose and onto the ground. Matthew's been trying to get me to do that for years! But I guess 12 year old live for that sort of stuff. Anyway, I'm really proud of myself. At home when I have bad allergy days, I usually sit in a fetal position until Nick puts me into a Benadryl induced coma. But today, I walked it off. I must have sneezed over a thousand times and blew my nose in a bandana all day (When I wasn't shooting snot rockets). DO IT smoked me on the trail today, he was ahead of me all day. I caught up with him all of once and we had some electrolytes after a particularly difficult climb and then he was gone again. It's really funny out here, no matter where I am and no matter who I am hiking past, I am constantly getting updates on DO IT's location. I don't even need to ask. Day hikers walk past me and say, "Oh your Dad's only about half a mile ahead" or "Your Dad just sat down for lunch". It's really cool. Everyone looks out for eachother. I had a really special moment with the sun today. Remember, it had been really cold. I even started hiking with a sweatshirt, a coat and gloves on in the morning. Well at one point I was standing still, looking up the trail and the sun was coming out from behind a cloud and I watched as it's light hit each piece of trail until it kissed my face. That made me really happy. It was about a solid 30 seconds of the sun moving towards me. Ahh. The hike got pretty tough at the end. My feet started screaming and I met a strange thru hiker who kept trying to keep pace with me. He said that he wrote a book recently, but that he wasn't publishing it because it had secret knowledge in it about Math and Nature. He also attempted a thru hike in 2010 but never finished it and wouldn't tell me why. I suspected he was pink blazing so I forced him to pass me and then fell behind. Then this terrible Italian woman started following me, passing me and then going soutbound to fall behind me again. She said she hiked like a dog and likes to be around people. She was circling me like a shark! I considered tripping her with my trekking pole, or better yet, asking her if she thought Jersey Shore is an accurate depiction of Italian culture. She circled me for miles!! I finally go to the road crossing around 5:00 where DO IT was waiting for me with Sit a Bit, the happiest thru hiker I have ever seen! And he did a 17 today! He said he's been sitting behing a desk for so long he just can't not be happy to be out here. We hitched a ride into town with an older couple from the area. The woman said she always nags her husband to pick up hikers, even though he doesn't want to. He kept eluding to a scary story but she wouldn't let him tell us! She said she has done everything she has wanted to do in her life but has never been North of Tennessee! Imagine that!They took us to the Holiday Inn, the one the Dixie Wanderer told us about, since it has a hot tub. Of course, when we checked in they said the hot tub was broken. But I'm perfectly content with a hot shower. We cleaned up and walked to the buffet down the street. They had everything a thru hiker could ask for, fried chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes! We ate like pigs and walked back to the hotel where DO IT is already horizontal and watching the History Channel. Tomorrow will be a zero day so that I can get a rain coat that actually has a freaking hood and DO IT can get a tent that will actually DO IT, even in the rain.