Date: 2005-03-28
From: Fontana Dam

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

We did travel today. We went from the Fontana Inn to the HikeInn. It was a ZERO day for us, meaning no miles. We got up at 7:30am - got to sleep in! We had a nice breakfast at the Fontana Inn. We went to the Outfitters and Post Office to check the mail. We got our short sleeve shirts, thanks SupplyGuy.Sandman went to the Outfitter to look for a tent because he hates the one he has now. It is a Henry Shires Tarptent Virga, he got the Tyvek for groundcloth with it. It sets up easy and looks very nice -- IN YOUR LIVING ROOM! If you don't find the absolutely, perfectly flat and level spot (in there are so many of those in the wilderness), then you, your tent floor, and your thermarest all slide downhill. Imagine this, you have a short half hoop by your feet with one end going to one corner on the ground and the opposite end of the hoop going to the other corner on the ground. All is good for the foot end of the tent. Now, let's go to the front/head end. This is where the trouble begins. Stick a pole in the center of the doorway from center top of tent to center bottom of tent. Then what happens? We will tell you...The entire tent "hangs" from the top of this pole like a swing, or like laundry hanging on a line. You think, well this won't be a problem, I will just stake the front two corners to the ground, right? Wrongo Bucko! The anchoring points are more than 12 inches up the wall/above the floor. Result: The ENTIRE bottom, and 12 inches of the walls of the tent "swings" or "slides" along the ground as if you are in a hammock pitched just high enough to have you laying on the ground. Here is the short version of this tent - - If you want a hammock - buy a hammock. If you want a tent - buy a tent. No the "bathtub-swinging-hammock-tent-thing". Oh, I forgot to mention, when you and your entire tent bottom along with 12 inches of the sidewalls slide, you will be laying on the screen mesh sides. When it rains oevernight you wake up in the morning and realize what the "bathtub" floor is for. It is for holding all the rain water that went through the screen sides you have been laying on all night. Lesson learned: If you buy this tent bring your rubber ducky.Back to Fontana Village. We waited until 11:30am to see if anymore packages may arrive at the PostOffice. While waiting we did laundry at the laundrymat. Nothing new in the mail at Fontana, so shuttle to the HikeInn. We got our bounce box at the HikeInn. We went through our supplies and food, made a list for additional food to get at Ingles in Robinsville, NC.HikeInn shuttles hikers to town at 5pm today for dinner and groceries. We ate at the Chinese Food Buffet in town. It was good food and we ate a lot. Boston's fortune cookie read: You have great physical powers and an iron constitution. Cubtrax and Sandman had the same fortunes, to trivial to remember. We ate dinner with Lo-Jack and Alex (Butterball). Alex doesn't really have a trail name yet, but we call him Butterball ever since we saw him eating a pound of butter on the side of the trail during a break. Nice guy though.We got back to the HikeInn for a good nights sleep while it rained. Lucky us! It rained heavily most of today, so we were mighty glad we had planned to take a ZERO.