Date: 2014-05-20
From: Campsite

To: Watuga Lake
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: broken clouds

So today started off a lot better than yesterday, no screeching owls next to my tent in the middle of the night is a victory in my book. We were aiming for a 18 mile day and since there were a lot of cool hints to see along the way, we decided to have an early start and Delaware made her rounds of wake up calls at 6. Doesn't matter if you're in a comfy bed or comfy tent, 6 am starts are still a bit rough,once I start hearing people outside moving around and breaking down camp is when I open the valve of my sleeping pad and sink down to the cold floor and there's no worse feeling.   So the day started and I met up with Delaware at a rock cropping with an amazing view so we say there for a bit having a snack and I spied a cell phone tower in the distance and thought maybe I could get a signal which I did and sat there for a bit checking email and updating trailjournals. In a sense, I'm happy I don't get a signal most of time as it keeps me from being on my phone and not knowing what's going in the real world, it's a blissful ignorance. We ventured and got to Laurel Falls which was a beautiful, big waterfall, best one so far on the trail. It's also a popular spot as there were ally of people there as well, I tried to stay down wind of them to so they would smell me too much, didn't want to ruin the experience of the falls for them.   After staying at the falls for awhile, we had a 2000 mile climb uphill and then an almost 2000 mile climb downhill. It's was our first big climb since Damascus and it's was more annoying than difficult. The main problem with the A.T is it makes you climb all the way to the top of a mountain and there's no view at the top rather it turns back down and you trudge downhill grumbling underneath your breath about how stupid the mountain is,repeat this for 2000 miles and your get some bitter thru hikers.   After the mountain, we ended up at the Shook Branch Recreation Center which is on the beautiful and huge Watuga Lake. They have picnic tables set up along with a section of the lake sectioned off for swimming. Delaware and I got there first and hung around for a bit and tried to call some pizza places in nearby towns with no success so we cooked up some food. I messed up my resupply so it's going to be slim pickings for the next few days until Damascus but everyone offered to help me out just in case, it's good to have a supportive group to help you out. We hung out there for awhile until everyone showed up and headed out for a campsite near the shelter. We've been avoiding the shelters as of late due to the norovirus and what seems to be a cold going around. It didn't help that during Trail Days, Damascus became a petri dish of disease as sickness combined with cold, wet weather along with lack of hand sanitizer. Then after three days, these spores of thru hikers spread up and down the trail infecting everything in their path so we're quarantining ourselves for awhile. The campsite is on the other side of the lake and once again the road is real close. I hate these types of sites where people have such easy access along with recent stories of bear figuring out how to take down the bear poles, probably going to be another uneasy night of sleeping. Just a few minutes ago we heard rustling around out tents and all of sudden Delaware yells 'Excuse Me!' and something ran off, most likely a raccoon and it tried to take her rain jacket out of her bag. I was about to run out of my tent in my underwear with my trekking and go attack it, there's never never a dull moment on the A.T.   While at the lake Delaware informed us her parents are coming down this weekend and they invited us to stay at the cabin they're at for a night which is awesome. Even better is there going to pick up our packs Saturday morning so we can slackpack for the day and make some big miles up and close the gap with the rest of the group further north. There also bringing food for us so Saturday can't come soon enough. Things are looking good for the rest off the week, Virginia is in our sights, time to check off another state.