Date: 2005-04-07
To: above Low Gap 
Miles today: 0.0

...Alright I dozed off. It is now the evening of April 7th. I was going to finish catching everyone up on the trip during the morning while I was staying dry in my tent. It rained all night. I stayed dry but woke to Trent whispering at my tentat 7:30. I knew something was up, Trent never wakes before 7:30. He had become rather wet in his hammock nd was going back to Neel's gap to buy a bivy sack. i offered to go along. So I didn't get to catch y'all up. Now I'm in my tent again. Trent got his bivy and we are riding out a monster thunder storm. It rained all day but the fog made everything really surreal. We covered 13 miles. Only 10 were positive because of our little walk back to Neel's Gap. I tried like a madman to start a fire. I almost blew up Bali Shag, Caboose, Indi, Trent and myself by igniting a bottle of white gas but all is well now. Too wet for anything to burn.As I was saying, on the 3rd we met a lot of new people. At lunch one Kung Fu was so hungry he drank the tuna juice that someone had leftover. We met Blotter and Sherlock, coll cats from Texas. The night was perect. Lots of stars. Jude, Trent and I sat around a tiny campfire and drank a small bottle of Jack Daniels. April 4th was beautiful. We hiked a lot more uphill. Tent camped with Bali, Boose, and Jude. I really enjoy staying in my tent instead of the shelters even if it is raining. Blotter from Texas waked down the way to hang out and listen to the basketball game. Bali has some little speakers so we usually end up listening to tunes and stargazing at the end of the day. Blotter showed me that if you put ear buds in a tin pot it acts like a speaker. Pretty cool.April 5th was another perfect day. Cloudless skies. Beautiful views. There still aren't many leaves on the trees and I got pretty sunburnt as a result. We camped at a really cool site on the approach to Blood Mountain. It is our irst elevation over 4000 ft. The sun went down in the sky right in front of my tent's front porch. We all brought out our sleeping pads and watched it set. At camp was Easy-Does-It, Jude, Bali, Boose, Indi, Trent and I.April 6th was Trent's Birthday. I woke up and attached an inflated surgical glove to a bottle of Johnny Walker 12yr I carried in. It was a good present and I was glad to get rid of the extra weight. We sumited Blood Mountain. The views from up there were of extremely high quality. We then headed to Neels Gap. We had discussed going into town to celebrate Trent's B-Day but found out it was a dry county. We decided instead to stock up on grub and move up to a campsite about 1.5 miles north to weather out the storm that I began writing from. The nights festivities included gruesome tales from west Texas, courtesy of Blotter, frisbee toss, fresh meats and cheeses, scotch and cigars, snickers biscuits and a guitar provided by Fancy pants. We all had a great time celebrating Trent's birth and I slept like a baby.Today was a long day because of the extra miles to Neels. It was really wet and too Foggy for any good views. Blotter said it reminded him of Oregon. We also met Kevin. He is a cool cat and is hip to Lynn Wheldon's revolution. There was a guy rom Germany that we hiked with. His name is Rhino. He had a sweet dog. Some type of breed from Switzerland. It rained all evening so I sat here in my cozy tent and caught up on my journals. I've got to go to sleep now so I'll talk to you all soon. Peace, Love, and flavored tuna packets.