Date: 2005-03-28
From: Rock Gap, NC

To: Winding Stair Gap, NC
Miles today: 3.7
Weather: light rain

Got another six pages in the mail today, with a note that indicated that Jess is indeed reading these intros. So, Jess, if you're reading this: Hi! Stop reading this and walk somewhere! And also, dude, you may as well contact Bill Bryson's publisher, because this is going to be a very long book soon, and I am so sharing the royalties.For the rest of the viewing audience, I am going away again this weekend (gotta go home and hang with Elijah), but I will do my best to post as quickly as I can within reason. If only I had a laptop, then I could type these on my ten-hour overnight train ride from DC to Boston tomorrow. I am never waiting til the last minute to buy plane tickets ever again. Lesson learned.Day 15, in which Jess is magnetically attracted to a podunk town in North Carolina, carries the entire produce section of a grocery store on her back, freaks out at the thought of a little snow, doesn't understand a euphemism for menstruation, visits a really big tree, and ends up right back where she started: Um. Right. So, our planned ten or eleven mile day rather rapidly and unexpectedly became a sub-five mile day. And here I am back at the Haven. It's a lovely place to stay, really. As evidenced by my rapid return: drawn as if by magnet back into town.So we packed up in the morning and got into Lori's van (because she'd showed up again) to ride down to Rock Gap, where we'd gotten off the trail Saturday afternoon. And just before pulling out of the Haven parking lot, Bassline-- another hiker, usually seen walking with the Gypsy Sisters and whose favorite phrase is "It's all good"-- came up to the van window to say goodbye. "Have fun!" he said, smiling broadly. "Supposed to get down to 18 degrees later! Gonna be a real sh-tty night! It's all good!"Eighteen degrees, I thought to myself. The survival rating of my sleeping bag and liner combined is ten point five degrees. This has nothing to do with its comfort rating. I looked out the window. It was starting to snow. "If this keeps up," I said, "I'm gonna be in a real pissy mood later. Just putting it out there.""Why?" said Lori absently. "You got a friend coming to visit, if you know what I mean?" "Huh?" I said. "What? Oh. No. I just hate being cold. And also I went a little overboard at the grocery store and I have a bag of grapes and green beans that must weight twelve effing pounds strapped to the back of my pack. Hey, anybody want a grape?"We pulled into Winding Stair. The snow was falling steadily by now, and the wind had picked up. I started fussing with my pack, digging through it for my gaiters, which I could not find. "You know," said Weatherman's voice, sounding a little muffled, "Franklin's real close." I turned and looked at him. The hood of his jacket was pulled down so tightly over his face it looked like a duck bill. "Real close," said Cuppa Joe. "I could pick you up at Winding Stair in two hours," said Lori. "It wouldn't be a zero day," said Scholar. "Winding Stair's 3.7 miles from here. Not a zero.""Wait," I said, turning again, a gaiter (finally located) dangling from one hand. "Is this for real? Are we really going back into town after three miles?"A long pause. Then: "Well, hell, yes," said Weatherman."Well, I ain't carrying this, then," I said, vehemently and pulled the monster bag of fruit off my pack, depositing it in the back of the van. Triumph.The hike itself went fairly uneventfully-- the weather wasn't lovely, but it's easy enough to ignore snow and wind when you know you're only a few miles from a shower and a warm bed. A brief side detour to the Wasalik Poplar, the world's second-largest poplar tree (motto: Big Damn Tree), and an unexpected encounter with a trail magic bucket left by Tony and Leona Smith (Thanks!) containing lollipops that lasted longer than any lollipop I've ever had in my life, as if made of industrial strength sugar, and we were descending into Winding Stair. ("Can't suck on them things," said Weatherman, waving his lollipop. "I get all slurpy. Can't breathe going uphill.")Rolling back into the Haven, Mother Goose came out to greet us. "Welcome home," she said. Cuppa Joe and I steamed greenbeans and carrots for dinner; I showered again, cranked up the heat, and wallowed in bourgeois luxury on the motel mattress, staring ath the Sirius TV radio channel and marveling that ten minutes after a shower, I can still smell like hell. Welcome home, indeed.Quote of the day:Captain Chaos (who is 19), at the Haven: "Cuppa Joe, do you have an AARP card? No! No! Just 'cause we could, like, get hotel discounts, man! We could hang out!"