Date: 2014-04-06
From: Muskrat creek shelter

To: betty creek gap
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: broken clouds

Sunday, April 6: day 8Trying to put the fire disaster behind me and keep a positive attitude. Start walking a bit quicker today trying to outrun the rain that supposed to hit us today. Rain has been in the forecast since Hiawasee and it's never happened. When are we finally going to get soaked?A couple miles up from my campsite was Deep Gap and the friendly and unexpected sounds of trail magic. They were just wrapping and packing up when I walked into the gap. Hikers already at the site sAid they enjoyed a nice warm dinner the night before and a breakfast of bacon and eggs! I grabbed some snickers, an apple, a fruit cup, a caprisun, and a handful of wheat thins. It wasn't a warm breakfast but really good none the less. Always amazing to receive trail magic. Especially, at the beginning of the day. After walking and camping kinda alone yesterday, I finally caught up with Jolly and Trevor at a shelter 10 miles past Deep Gap. It was nice to see them after everyone went their separate ways in. Hiawasee. Everyone chit chatted a bit, grabbed water from a stream, and chowed down trail mix before setting off again. During lunch, I started talking to this interesting character named Nemo. Probably named after the Disney movie but he said he's never seen it. He's been out of the US since 2006 and hasn't had tv since '97. Anyways, he's not dressed like a "normal" hiker. He has stylish city clothes and a checkered scarf probably picked up in the Middle East. And after taking to him for a bit, he has been living in the Middle East for a while. And has been living abroad in cheaper countries for the past 7 years. SE Asia, east Asia, South America, the Middle East d Eastern Europe. He says he not rich but gets all his money from stocks. And lives off the gross world salary of $10,500 a year. Pretty interesting guy. As I talked more about how he earns a living, I learned that he plays the stock market purely by the numbers and looks at value investing (kept talking about the old style of Warren Buffet). He talked a lot about devalued banks and undervalued stocks. He talked very fast for the woods yet was very forthright in relaying his knowledge. It's was nice to talk something other than dehydrated food and pack weight (at least for a little bit). After walking another 5 miles past the shelter I stopped at Betty Creek Gap. There were two guys already setting up for the night and were anticipating a couple more of their friends. Waldo (because of his glasses), and the Ginger Ninja (or something like that). He just had a giant red beard and a shaved head. A skinny, Scottish looking kid. Very quiet yet helpful. Waldo was a English teacher in South Korea for a couple years and has a really UL pack. I think he's the guy that passed me the second day on the trail. But now he's a bit slower because he sprained his ankle. Trevor, Yoda, Pearl, Monkey man, Trish, Nemo, and another guy all make into camp before nightfall. Making 10 campers in all. Everyone thought it was finally going to rain either tonight or tomorrow so we all setup our tents in the thick tree growth. I think the trees are lily of the mountain or magnolia trees. Not sure. They just have large leaves that spread out like a fan. Getting to be almost 15-20 tall. Anyways, I found a nice little gap in those trees and setup camp. It was almost to small and had to work carefully around my tent so I didn't trip on the tent steaks. But after it started to rain, Monkey Man complimented me on my tent placement. The driest of the bunch. But that's the next morning. The Ginger Ninja started a fire in the fire-ring for everyone to enjoy and as the storm winds started to blow in and it got colder and rainy everyone was glad there was a fire to huddle around. As people sat and cooked their dinner around the fire, the atmosphere was relaxing. A nice change of pace from racing 16 miles trying to beat the rain and get close enough to town that the next days hike wouldn't be to hard (12 miles). The more talkative hikers told camp stories or just funny, yet strange drug-induced hallucination stories, as other just stared into the fire. We all decided that we could grab a couple of rooms in Franklin and have a big group feast day at the restaurants around town. Sounded like a good plan. As it got dark, it started to rain. The fire kept us warm for a bit before the drops got to larger do we all headed to out tents. We all knew we had a long wet day ahead.