Date: 2011-04-07
From: Grand Prix Hotel Gaitlinburg

To: Icewater Spring Shelter
Miles today: 3.0
Weather: clear sky

Short day but the next week looks like we are going to start doing some bigger miles specially once we get out of the Smokies. Tomorrow should be a 12 something and then maybe a long day the next. We finished up in Gaitlinburg is morning and had all you can eat at Bennets Bar B Que. Its actually the same place Chris and I ate when we finished our hike here a year ago. The shelter tonight is actually the last one we stayed in as well and tomorrow should be another, but we will most likely skip the first one we stayed in. Lots of people here tonight we haven't meet that actually started a couple days after us. Had a good fire going and sat around a while. So leaving town today my food bag weights about 20 pounds, way to heavy, but tonight had had tacos with actual ground beef that wasn't deydrated. Also had taco shells crushed up in it with the last of my jalapeno, some string cheese and salsa. Same thing is on the menu for tomorrow night as well. I would like to get out early tomorrow and walk the mile to Charles Bunion for sunrise though it will probably be cloud cover in the morning with a 30 percent chance of rain. Today while hiking the three miles in we passed a lot of tourist. We could definitely tell we are hiking so much stronger as we where easily passing everyone going up hill with full packs and them nothing and flying by them. We have taken to pretty much signing the shelter registry by using it to keep track of our greed games. Lindsay aka Mission Impossible aka Hover seems to win every game and hasn't lost in a week. Name stuff coming up later. We also played Euker not sure how it is spelled, similar to spades so was easy to pick up and Phil aka Ninja aka Fiber won over Hover and Shepherd, Hover and I had never played. Fun game and will love to continue playing it. So to name changes for the day. So on the car ride back to the trail today Phil starts naming off all the characters in the ninja turtles, not just the turtles but everthing. Then when we get to camp and we are sitting in the sun playing cards in 70 degree weather he wraps a long sleeve shirt over his head and wraps the sleeves around his face looking like a ninja. It was a little far fetched for a name but we gave him ninja as a trail name. Then breakfast caught up to him and I have to tell a pre story. First Phil and Aj have been eating extreme amounts of food and at walmart basically get a shopping cart of food between them. They decide to each get a box of cereal for breakfast, not one box to split but one each. We check out the cereal and Phils has about 200 percent of daily fiber for the box. He takes it as a challenge and eats the entire box for breakfast this morning. So after we get to the shelter Phil takes a trip to the privy, over the next hour or two he takes at least two more trips. After the last time when he comes back we tell him he has a choice Fiber or Ninja. He choose Ninja, but after another trip a little later after everyone else started arriving we pretty much decided he is Fiber. Much better story and better trail name in my opinion. So now to MI, now Hover, with her not having seen the show or movies the association was kind of missing but the name is still there with the crazy hovering over the trail so it was just changed to Hover. So those are the names I will be referencing in the future. Not much else went on today with the short hike.