Date: 2006-03-24
From: Fontana Dam Shelter (The Fontana Hilton)

To: The Hike Inn
Miles today: 0.0

3-24-06Fontana Dam Shelter (The Fontana Hilton) to The Hike Inn0.0 milesRest for my weary feet...Woke up at around six or something but laid around for over an hour or so, I didn't really have anywhere to go until we got picked up to go to the Hike Inn. When I did finally emerge from my fluffy warm cave that is my sleeping bag, it was quite chilly out, with a light drizzle or flurries filling the outside world. Being at the Fontana Hilton, we had heated bathrooms a short walk up the road, which was my first order of business this morning. A heated place to wash your face makes a brisk morning on the AT a little more bearable, actually, who am I kidding, it was down right luxurious.I snacked on my favorite homemade breakfast this morning: instant oatmeal mixed with chocolate chips, walnuts, and dehydrated banana chips; it is always a treat.I borrowed Uncle John's cell phone and called Nancy at the Hike Inn to find out what time she could pick us up. It was 8AM; she said she would come at 10:30AM, so we had some time to kill.Pretty much I spent the next two hours pacing back and forth along the shelter floor, trying to stay warm and not succumb to total boredom with its cavernous mouth when I have absolutely nothing to do. I found a variety of ways to entertain myself: wrote in the trail journal, read other hiker's entries, examined the contents of the trail journal box (hot sauce!), solved the world's problems with Uncle John (the previous night I had thought long and hard about the state of the US today and was even considering writing a book on it), reminisced with the Uncle, and talked about family.Around 9:30AM or so, two other thru-hikers stopped by, trail names Chainsaw (apparently named due to his snoring) and The Hobbit. We talked to them for a bit, passing the time. They signed the trail register and left, and then we left at 10AM, anxious to get to the Hike Inn. It really only took us about five minutes to walk up to the parking lot, so I resumed my pacing up there while we waited for Nancy. It was cold!Nancy finally arrived, and my joy at getting in her heated truck was soon replaced with dismay when she gave us the news: Apparently Shanae had checked late last night how long it would take to drive here, and her initial estimation of three hours to get here from Raleigh was way off, by about, oh, three hours! So she had been frantically calling Nancy all morning, trying to get a hold of us because she didn't know what to do. Uncle John heard this and started getting all stressed out about his flight now that he didn't know if he was going to make his flight he scheduled for that afternoon. I just tried to remain calm until we got to the hotel and called Shanae.As soon as we arrived at our destination, I got Shanae on the phone, with my uncle pacing in the background. If you haven't noticed yet, this was a very pacing-filled day. Here is the scoop as I got it from Shanae: she didn't check until this morning for directions because she was out to dinner with her mother at a Brazilian steakhouse (which I might add that it is cruel and unusual punishment to describe in exact detail the delicious three-hour dinner you had to a person afflicted with hiker hunger and living off of trail food). So when she finally got them, the driving directions said it would take five to six hours to get here, and then another two to get to Knoxville according to Nancy (people from that area had told us last night it would take an hour and an half). Plus she was worried about there being bad weather and needing to study the GREs, which she had on Monday, so she decided not to come. By the time I got her on the phone, she was already headed back to her cousin's house in South Carolina, where she is staying for the summer.Even though I understood all of Shanae's reasons for not coming, I felt really let down and knew Uncle John now had to call the airline and change his flight, so I got off the phone with her. Fortunately, Uncle John switched his flight to the next day and arranged to pay for a ride from Jeff, Nancy's husband. Unfortunately, I think it cost him a bunch more, and all my hopes and dreams of seeing Shanae this weekend were dashed on the pavement leading to our room. What a bummer.On the up side, we showered and chilled out watching TV until Nancy gave us and the other thru-hikers (Freefall and Randy) a ride into town. We stopped at the post office first so I could mail some more stuff back home and mail some Uncle John's equipment ahead to Hot Springs for Shanae to use when she joins me on the trail for a couple of weeks.I was a-craving some Mexican food and heard there was a pretty decent place in town, El Pacifica, so we stopped to pig out there. We both ordered a Southern favorite, sweet tea, and Uncle John got a chicken quesadillas and I got the pollo something or other, a deep-fried tortilla wrapped chicken. We even managed to stuff down some dessert: fried ice cream.We walked as fast as possible from there to the library; it was very cold and windy, and wearing my moon suit into town because all my clothes were in the wash. At the library I worked on my online journal and soothed some frustrated EBay customers, while Uncle John read magazines.Pick up time was six-o-clock, so we started our way back along the cold streets around five thirty. And we must have been looking pretty studly, I in my moon suit and Uncle John just being such a Chuck Norris look-a-like, that some girls driving by honked and waved to us. Alright! Uncle John stopped at Subway to grab us some supper and I stopped at Ingles for drinks and breakfast food: cheese danishes. Nancy picked us up and we went back to our room to watch the ol' boob tube before going to bed. I called Shanae at some point, but felt weird talking on the phone at that place because it was Nancy's and Jeff's personal phone right in their house, and they were always hanging around in the kitchen or nearby, maybe wanting to us the phone themselves. So we talked briefly and I tried to write in my journal that night but was still bummed out by the day's change in plans that I could only write a bit before curling up in bed.