Date: 2016-03-13
From: North of Big Rock Springs 

To: Hot Springs, NC
Miles today: 8.0
Weather: moderate rain

When we last saw our heroine, she had a pretty nasty case of poison ivy but was bravely hiking down the Appalachian Trail.   Now, days later, her condition has worsened precipitously and her retired husband the Physician is threatening to pull her off the trail. Warning her that if this continues, she may need to be hospitalized! Lol, I do get a big kick out of keeping this journal. But all kidding aside, my arm was really good looking nasty. It was hurting like the dickens, beside the itching, and had turned very red and super oozy. I have another picture but Will says it's disgusting. So I won't display it for the sake of the children. I gotta tell you when he started talking about the possibility of ending our hike over it, it made me pretty sad. I'm a ' the glass is half full' kind of girl usually but in this case the glass wasn't half empty or half full, it was bone dry!We had just 8 miles to make it to Hot Springs this morning. We talked about all different scenarios. Today is Sunday and we knew the Hot Springs Urgi Center was closed. We could try and hitch to Ashville,NC or maybe throw ourselves on the mercy of my brother Denny who lives like 3 hours away. I knew he would help me in a heartbeat but a 6 hrs round trip seemed a little extreme. We decided to figure it out when we got there. The 8 miles just flew by and we came down off the trail at little after 9am. We looked around and there it was, the Laughing Heart Hostel.This had to be an omen right? My heart could use some laughter and all we have to do is walk about 15 or 20 steps and we are there. This we do and we are met as we walk in the door by two Trail Angels extraordinaire, Brave and Forward. They are on a little trail angeling road trip and had pulled into the Laughing Heat Hostel this am. Fortunately for us as it turns out. We asked about nearby Urgi Care places. They asked us why and when I showed them, they immediately dropped all their own personal plans and started making a plan to take us to Ashville, NC to an Urgi Care place.   From Hot Springs this is probably about an 45 minute drive. We took our showers and we're soon on the way.Ended up in a CVS of all places. Had their own little clinic with a nurse practitioner. She was really good. Took about 45 minutes going over my case and answering our questions.   Turns out she was the woman to see since she treats tons of cases similar to mine in the summer. This made Will feel a bit better because he was worried I was working my way to a very severe infection that might need IV care or something. She didn't even recommend that I stop hiking. Wahooo! She said the steroids would take care of it.We left the clinic with a few prescriptions and feeling much better. Brave and Forward were waiting patiently outside for us. They were very happy that we had gotten the help we needed. Then it was on to the store. They needed a few things and we needed to resupply so that worked out well.We headed back to the Laughing Heart Hostel, and indeed my heart felt some laughter now. We are so, so grateful to Brave and Forward for ditching the plans they had for their whole day and taking pity on their fellow hikers. You guys will never know how much that meant to us! Again, thank you from the bottom of our laughing hearts!Road Runner