Date: 2015-05-10
From: Pond Flats Campsite

To: U.S. 321/Watauga Lake
Miles today: 3.4
Weather: clear sky

5/10/2015 Day 38 - Today was the last day in which Jingle Butt and I would hike with each other, at least for a while. We got started at out normal time, around 7:40 am, and walked the easy downhill to Hwy 321. When we got to the road, we heard from another hiking couple who had just been dropped off by the folks at Black Bear Resort that it was a great place to take a nero or a zero. They said the accommodations, people working there and re supply resources were top notch.Jingle Butt had a mail drop sent to the Braemer Castle Hostel in Hampton and wanted to pick it up before we decided where to stay. I wanted to give the Black Bear place a try and Jingle Butt was undecided. I took the lead walking on the road to Hampton, TN and Jingle Butt stuck her thumb out hoping to get us a ride. Hampton is about 3 miles from the trail head and we really didn't want to walk it if we didn't have to. It's not part of the trail so it's like wasting energy. After we walked less than a mile a group of people in a small Chevy Blazer stopped and told us to hop in. The car was already full of a family that had been camping the night before near the lake, but the young men sitting in the back seat crawled in back on top of their gear and offered us their seats. What a great gesture and I was really appreciative, especially since those young men looked so uncomfortable but kept smiles on their faces.It turns out that the hostel owner is also the owner of Brown's Hardware in town and that's where Jingle Butt sent her package. The nice family dropped us of there but the store was closed on Sundays. It is Tennessee after all.Jingle Butt call the proprietor who came down and opened up to give her the mail drop. He invited us down to his hostel, but I didn't get a warm and fuzzy feeling about arranging a ride to the airport with him the following day. We decided to walk down to McDonalds and call Black Bear Resort for a Shuttle to their place to stay the night. Their advertisement said they gave long range shuttle rides which sold me on the place. Before we got more than a block from the hardware store a really nice off-road jeep pulled up on the opposite side of the road and asked us if we needed a ride. He was on of the guys who hosted the hiker feed we went to the previous day and said he would give us a ride to Black Bear Resort. Gypsy, a hiker we had previously met, was with him. He invited us down for more food after we settled in. Jingle Butt and I got a cabin together to split costs and showered before going down to last bit of the hiker feed. The weather was warm and the skies were clear so we walked down and had a good conversation with one of the other guys hosting the feed. I think his name was Tom. Let me say say that Black Bear Resort lived up to its reputation. It's family run and has a very welcoming and warm feel to it. There was obviously a lot of love put into the place and I enjoyed staying there. I arranged for a ride to the airport the following day for $76 without any difficulty. I sat around the rest of the day doing laundry and watching a movie in the common room with other hikers. In the evening we got a shuttle to town and I ate high calorie food at Micky D's. It hit the spot. That evening Jingle Butt and I sat on the porch of our cabin and talked about nothing in particular, but enjoyed each other's company well past our normal bedtime. She was heading out on the trail to Damascus in the morning, and I was catching a flight back home for Eric's ASU Graduation. We've become good friends and I'll miss hiking with her. I plan on going to Trail Days and hope to see her there.