Date: 2017-03-21
From: Springer Mountain, GA

To: As far as they can go
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

This is Ma Fahmah reporting on Fahmah and Klipspringer. They are together again on the AT for celebration of their 10-year anniversary. I dropped them off in Dahlonega, GA where they stayed at the Hiker Hostel and at the Quality Inn in Dahlonega before starting on their hike.They started off slowly, returning to the Hostel a couple of nights, then up to Neel Gap where they stayed at a cabin there. The second day, Fahmah had lost his rain gear and his glasses and then found them, on third day he lost his wallet, then found it and then lost his wallet again, but again, found it! He has a little memory thing going on! Well, what do you expect at 77 (on April 5th)? Like he says, "wait till you get old"! I headed out to Texas for a visit with my brother and my sister and their families, returning on Wednesday, March 29. We met in Hiawassee, GA where they had hiked nearly 11 miles in a day to get to Unicoi Gap, where I picked them up on Thursday, March 30. They had shipped drop boxes to Franklin and all the hotels in Hiawassee were full because of impending rain and the "Hiker Trash Weekend" celebration held there. Our friends, and trail angels, Dave and Robin, live in Hiawassee and we didn't want to be in the area without seeing them. Fahmah called them while he was still on the trail and told them when we would be there. Well, I wasn't picking him up until around 1 pm so I went to the local Ingles grocery store to pick up some snacks and cold cokes for them. As I rounded a corner toward the dairy, I recognized a familiar face.....Robin in the same store. It was wonderful to see her. She was busy that night, but we said we would get together while we were around. I drove up to Unicoi Gap to pick them up. There were trail angels set up feeding lunch to the hikers as they came down the trail. Not much after 1 pm Fahmah and Klip came. They had their lunch and cold drinks and rested a bit. We decided we would head on up to Franklin for a hotel and to pick up the packages they had sent forward, since everything was full in Hiawassee anyway. It was about a 40 minute drive and we went to Haven's to pick up the packages, but he was full too, so we went to the Sapphire Inn for a couple of nights. Fahmah called Robin again and told her we were in Franklin. She and Dave came up for dinner and we had a great visit and terrific meal at Lucio's, a little Italian restaurant in walking distance to the hotel, where we had delicious meals! Look them up if you are in Franklin!I had planned to leave Franklin on Saturday afternoon, and the guys were going to start hiking again on Sunday morning. But, I guess they thought they had rested long enough, so on Saturday, after having breakfast and doing their laundry, we headed up to Winding Stair Gap, where I left them around 2 pm (2 hours later than I wanted to be on the road) It was check out time at the hotel, but, of course, Fahmah didn't have his pack sorted out. So we just dumped everything in the car and left (I lost the key to the room in all the confusion, but the hotel was gracious and said not to worry!) It took him 2 hours to get his pack put together and off they went!