Date: 2004-04-21
From: Tenn 91

To: McQueens Gap, USFS 69
Miles today: 10.7

Today is Wednesday April 21st, It's a beautiful day, Terry says that all the time. I slept good last night. It was quiet, we will bring in the air purifier tonight. We had a great breakfast this morning, fruit, potatoes, pastries, Biscuits, peach cobbler, Fried apples, Eggs and gravy. We are still at Maple bed and breakfast.Talk to hikers at our table. First couple is an older guy and a young gal thru-hiking. Freedom is the girl, Carefree the guy. And her mother is in town visiting them on their hike. Carefree is from Atlanta, and freedom is from South Carolina. They met on the trail. Another hiker is Mouth, who is with an older gentleman, who may be his father visiting him on the trail. Mouths mother is also visiting him. So there were eight of us eating breakfast this morning. Sarah is the owner of the place, and very nice. People were asking her the history of the bed and breakfast. She told us the town's whole history and her whole history, more than you ever wanted to know. So we decided to hike that 10.7 Miles, back in Tennessee, that we still need to do. So we took our car up to McQueen Gap, and now we're driving back to Tennessee 91, to start the hike. We got on the trail at 10:30 a.m. So our Trail was nice and gradual, good surface, and we were making good time, After an hour we stopped and rested for 30 minutes on our tarp. Cindy was in heaven, so nice with a log for her head to rest on. Terry sat over there and started rubbing my feet for me. It was so good. So there was some up, and then we got to Double Springs shelter at 12:30 p.m.Decided to have lunch there and read the shelter Journey. The first time we've read the shelter Journal this trip. A hiker came by the shelter named Buckeye. He thought he might make it into Damascus today. He should be able to make it, we left there at 1 pm. We hiked on the crest of the mountain and the whole mountain is covered with spring beauties everywhere. So it looks like snow, but it's the spring beauties time to be out. We hiked on looking for a place to stop, but didn't see one until 2:30 pm. It wasn't the best place to stop , but we took our shoes off and had a snack and within a few minutes Buckeye walks by. Buckeye graduated from Ohio State and is taking some time off before working. We may see him in town tonight, who knows. Cross Low Gap at about a quarter to three. We should be 3.7 miles to the car. It's been a fairly long day for us, we both are feeling the miles on our bodies. Finally made it to McQueen's knob. Had to use psychology and think of other things then the trail, as we go up and down these little mountains. We go by the Holiday Inn Shelter, oldest smaller shelter on the trail. It was cute, we stopped and took pictures. We are really close to the car now, and it's 4:39 p.m. We get to the car at 4:45 p.m. At 5:45 p.m. we were at the Maples bed and breakfast with showers taken. Went out at 6:15 p.m. and bought some quarts of beer for drinking on the front porch. We had our beers and went to the Side Track Cafe For supper. Very very casual place. Lot of hikers in there with a big table for hikers. We ordered a stromboli and East Coast sandwich. the Stromboli is a pizza folded in half. Food was good and able to get on the internet. Got on the trail journals to read and looked at our Yahoo mail. Hey I could have sent some mail. Will have to come back later and have a beer and send mail. Went back to the Maples bed and breakfast, Terry rested and I went downstairs to watch West Wing. It's not quite the same without Terry watching with me and without Rob Lowe. Went to bed about 10.