Date: 2006-04-05
From: Big Flat

To: The Smokey Bowl Organic Farm (Hippyland)
Miles today: 4.5

4-5-06Big Flat to Smokey Bowl Organic Farm (Hippyland)4.5 milesTry not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.- Albert EinsteinToday we got up and had everything packed and ready to go by 9:15AM, our earliest time yet, and probably because we hadn't made breakfast that morning. We hiked our two miles to the next shelter (Hogback Ridge Shelter) and I took the half a mile roundtrip walk to get our water. By the time I got back Shanae had already gotten out her sleeping bag and was wrapped in it, nestled away in the corner of the shelter. We were making breakfast and relaxing when the father/son hiking duo came along to have lunch at that spot. I hadn't seen them since that first night in the Smokies. Apparently it had just been the son's birthday too, and they had celebrated in Gatlinburg, a town in the middle of the Smokies I had decided to pass by.As Shanae and I curled up with the sleeping bag draped over us and ate our hot food, we talked about how she was doing and decided it would be a good idea to take a nero (near zero) and relax here for the day and give her feet some R and R. We would just arrive in Erwin a day later, no big deal.The father/son left and I set about making a big fire for us to keep warm by in the fire pit. It seemed to me the next part of the day had the theme of, "if you build it, they will come."The fire was made, and all sorts of hikers we had met before came to that shelter for lunch and further scheming about what they were doing for the rest of the day. Uber-dude, along with his traveling partners, 4-today, Low-key, Saspirilla, and Crumbs, and then Bear and Tortoise stopped on by. With the fire going, all the hikers breaking out food, everybody laughing and talking, it was a regular shelter party there that day.We had all been there for a while when two hippy girls came by with a sign to post at the shelter. Now, I am labeling them as hippies because they both had dreadlocks, wore corduroy, looked pretty grungy, came bearing a colorful crayon-on-cardboard sign inviting hikers to the, get this, "Smokey Bowl Organic Farm", and after chatting with us for a little while, smoked pot in the shelter.The hippies left shortly after that, then Crumbs and Saspirilla did, and then Uber-dude, Low Key, and 4-today. Tortoise, Bear, and I were still BS-ing around the fire, cooking marshmallows, poking fun at the hippies and joking about what we find if we went to the "organic farm", like bongos, hackysacks, and ultimate frisbee playing.After much deliberation and many marshmallows later, we decided to go to the hippy farm en masse. Our stuff was packed and we walked the easy two miles to the road. We turned right and walked another half mile until a bunch of people outside of this house with a rainbow colored shed asked us where we were headed, we said "Smokey Bowl", and they informed us we were there.So we came in and dropped our packs and surveyed the place. A handful or so of hippies were outside, along with a full entourage of five or six dogs. There were chairs, toys, musical instruments (we were right about the bongo), and various other items scattered all about. It wasn't what I had pictured for an organic farm, but we all sat down and made ourselves at home, kind of. The characters in this act were Soup, a short kid dressed in what looked to me like circus clothing, and wearing a necklace of chicken bones around his neck. There also was James, who could play System of A Down songs on the lute, then the nameless accordion-playing shirtless guy, two shoulder length hear ripped shirts and pants hippies, the necklace making fellow, the two dreadlock girls from the shelter, the older bus driving guy with the glasses and the beat up leather jacket, and our hosts, dread girl three and scruffy lip-ring guy. I think that was about all of them.Soon enough, I was picking up the accordion and playing it with my new hippy friends. The hippies only know one song, a circus song which they play over and over again for awhile, stop for a bit, then play it again. It added to the surreal ness of our surroundings.Lip-ring dude showed us our cabin, with a point to a hillside and the advice that we shouldn't all try to stand in one place all at once. We walked up the hill to our cabin, which was a bare-bones shack with nothing covering the insulation yet and a bendy scrap-wood-glue-board floor. Just enough room for the four of us to set up sleeping bags on the floor, with Bear and I placing ours on support beams, just in case. We didn't want to find ourselves suddenly falling through the floor and sliding down to the road in the middle of the night.We headed back down and the head hippy made us instant rice, kidney beans, and corn, which kind of did the trick. We watched some Sponge Bob Square Pants, talked with the hippy fold, and Shanae got an anklet made. I must digress and describe the hippy house a bit. It was a ranch house with all the amenities, but everything was put together in a haphazardly way. Dreadlock girl number three paints these huge murals on all the walls in the house, giving it personality and spice. And I have no idea how they supported themselves, because it definitely wasn't much of a farm, what with the one greenhouse I saw, and I don't think either one of them worked. I'm thinking the income was probably illegally derived, and supplanted by money from generous hikers... But these are just guesses; I have really had no idea. And the whole house is filled with these homeless kids, from day to night, until they go to sleep in the cabin down the hill. It was an interesting place. But it was getting dark, so we made our way back up to the precarious structure to get some shuteye.Needless to say, it did not come quickly, as I passed around that bit of 12 year old Jameson my mom had sent me, and then Bear and I laughed our asses off at the raunchy jokes we were making. Finally, Tortoise got us to shut up, and we all went to sleep happily thinking about the diner food we will be eating tomorrow.