Date: 2007-04-05
From: Spring Mountain Shelter

To: Campsite Near Spring
Miles today: 10.8

A short day, but a hard one nonetheless, mostly because, as the weather report predicted, a cold front came through and it's really cold outside at the moment. I don't know whether to laugh at all the guys who bought kilts in Hot Springs or feel bad for them. (Actually, I did laugh, so... yeah).The weather is at least as cold as it was on top of Tray Mountain in Georgia was, that seemed like it was years ago. I know Biscuits is still on the trail - I've seen his entries in the registers on a semi-regular basis. He's about 2 days ahead of me, probably more now that I'm hiking shorter days for the time being. I have no idea what happened to Caveman, however. The last time I saw his name he was a day ahead of me back in North Carolina at the trail magic registry. I think I may have pushed ahead of him, because he seemed to enjoy signing the registries. Not entirely sure, though.Loner Bohner, Dad and myself woke up this morning and basically lay in our sleeping bags for 2 hours. It was frigid. I was the last one to break camp, at 10:15 - my latest start yet.The situation here is more serious than the one at Tray Mountain. The next closest town is Erwin, TN, several days away. That means that if the weather doesn't break soon, I'll be stuck in this cold until at least Sunday, probably Monday. At Tray, Hiawassee was like 10 miles away, so it was nothing to worry about, and I could go at whatever pace I felt like.Because I'm hiking with my father, who just can't do the miles that I can, I have to slow down until Saturday, when we reach Sam's Gap and Matt and Dad leave. It's supposed to get to 20 degrees on Saturday. Ugh.Anyway, enough fretting. I'm out here on my own accord, so whatever situation I'm in is by my choice.Erwin is about 46 miles away - I'll get there soon enough - and Miss Janet's House is supposedly the best hostel on the AT - she's a legend among thru-hikers, or something. And she's right in downtown Erwin.This morning Loner Bohner was telling weird stories that were hilarious. His brother-in-law was in the Army, and he was stationed in Ethiopia, which has a lot of Muslims. Loner Bohner said that his brother-in-law told him that the Muslims there believe that a fart is actually an evil spirit, so whenever someone would have to fart, he or she would bang 2 rocks together to drown out the noise and the "evil spirit." Of course once the American troops got word of this, they would try to rip really big ones when they were near the natives to scare them. I guess they eventually had to stop because it wasn't good for diplomacy and all that.I related the story of when Footpump was taking a shit on one of the privies, and when the load dropped, it scared a bird down there and it started squawking and flying around. Loner Bohner topped that by telling us how he knew a guy who was in a privy and had his scrotum bit off by an alligator. No joke. I can't make this shit up. Then he began talking about gerbilling and I kinda just fell back into my sleeping bag and attempted for a few more minutes of sleep - unsuccessfully, of course.Hopefully we'll do 13 miles tomorrow. After they leave at Sam's Gap, I'll go crazy and do 20 mile days again, and probably run out of food. That seems to be my modus operandi as of late.