Date: 2007-04-30
From: Little Laurel Shelter

To: Flint Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: clear sky

April 30, Cliffs, Fields, and HeadstonesGot up at 7:25 a.m. to 52.7 degrees in my tent. Had a nice morning at Little Laurel Shelter and a great breakfast - peanut butter and homemade granola (thank you, Rachel), cinnamon flavored oatmeal, half of a tomato biscuit, and some earl grey. That should give me the energy I need.Right now I'm sitting near a spring on the side of the trail. The weather is beautiful - the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I can hear water coming from the spring. It's gorgeous here yet, for some reason, I'm just not feeling it today. I thought I'd gotten out of my funk yesterday but it came back this morning. Not really sure how to get it gone for good. I'm glad to be out here but for some reason I think I'll feel better once we get to Erwin.I just saw another new flower - I get really excited for new flowers. They make me think of my grandparents and the beautiful gardens they keep. It was white with three leaves and had purple and yellow in the center. It almost reminded me of an orchid without being an orchid. Lovely....The rest of the day went pretty slow. Certain and I were both feeling unmotivated and there were a lot of great vistas today so we soaked them all up. We stopped at White Rock Cliffs and took them in for a while. Then, about two tenths of a mile down the trail were Blackstack Cliffs. We spent a little time there too - overlooking the city of Greenville in front of us and relaxing. When we finally got moving again, we were hiking along the ridgeline of the mountain. The trail turned to nothing but rocks and we went up and down and up and down. It was fun to be on a ridge - really broke up the feeling of always being under trees. That part of the trail wore me out. My legs were tired after that and my feet hurt. We made it to Jerry Cabin Shelter around 3:30 p.m. to get some water and we took about a 45 minute break. Both of us felt like we could stop there but we decided we'd prefer to push on. The trail past there was not bad. A climb up, then across a field, up and down through some rocks near Big Butt Mtn. and then down an old gravel road for quite a while. A big down and then a small climb to the shelter. We crossed several open fields - I love those! I always want to run and do a cartwheel. We also crossed several tombstones and markers - one for a past AT hiker and others for folks I don't know. Crazy.As we hiked down the old gravel road, we paused for a celebration - we reached the 300 mile mark! The toast began - me with my crunchy peanut butter Clif Bar and Certain with her melted Snickers. Cheers to being stuck in Hot Springs for five days with a cold, cheers to getting out of the Smokies, cheers to all of the springs that have given us water, cheers to the temps rising, cheers to me still carrying a pound and a half of hand warmers, cheers to the Smoky Mtn. Diner...and on and on. It was a good toast and I was excited to have reached the 300 mile mark.After that, we pushed ourselves to the shelter. Ran into DuckSoup laying in Flint Gap reading so he followed us up to the shelter. We didn't get here until 7:45 p.m. and I am whipped.I got a message from Scribe tonight saying that she is headed home for a few weeks to take care of her ankle. They had to turn around about a mile into their slackpack yesterday. I will definitely miss them but hopefully we will reunite in Damascus, that's where she said they are coming back. I am falling asleep now. Good night.- Sound of silence. Very nice.Post Trail Thoughts:Hmm...I'm really not sure how I made it past North Carolina. There doesn't seem to be one day here when I DID feel like hiking.