Date: 2005-04-23
From: Erwin, Tenn

To: Erwin Tenn
Miles today: 0.0

Day 43I put ear plugs in my ears for the first time last night since I have been on the trail. For some reason, being in an enclosed room with Toto's snoring must make the sound louder. Or maybe he snores louder inside. I heard T-2 get up really early (around 1 or 1:30am and leave the room. When I woke up again later with a coughing spell I got up and left the room to look for him. He was in the lobby on the computer. After he got off, I got on and looked at our trail journal site and made a few corrections to mileages and errors made in the body of 1 or 2 journal entries. I'm sure there are more mistakes but I did not have time to read everything over.By the time Annie, the motel desk attendant put out the doughnuts, bagels, juice, milk, bread, cereal, and coffee at 6a.m. I had been up for over 2 hours and T-2 had fallen asleep on the sofa in the lobby. He had gotten up because of Toto's snoring. Snowman and Icicle wanted to go to Wal-Mart in Johnson City so later in the morning we drove over to pick up a few things. I saw a children's book--THE WIZARD OF OZ--and bought it. I thought I might get a chance to read a little of it each day. If I don't I will be sending it home. Toto did some more shuttling this afternoon and loved every minute of it. We got a call from Red Hat to let us know she is at Miss Janet's. She had hiked out Thursday morning but the weather had gotten bad up in the mountains last night with thunder, hail, and lightening and she decided that it was not fun being up there in such conditions, so she came off at a forest service road and got a ride into Erwin with a hunter that was driving down out of the woods. So we went over to Miss Janet's to see her and saw Phoenix there. He has been off the trail with a fracture in his foot and also some stress fractures. He is wearing a boot cast and is in the meantime doing some shuttling around the area in a rented van. It was good to see him again.   After we visited at Miss Janet's we brought Red Hat to the Super-8 so she could see who was over here and meet some of the hikers she has not met before.For the evening meal we decided to go back to the River's Edge Restaurant since there were some that had not been there and we told them it was a not to missed place to go to. There were 12 of us--Mike made 3 trips over to get us all there. Phoenix was already there when we arrived. We had a great time and again we all enjoyed the music. The wonderful lady, Annie, that has been covering the motel desk and puts out the breakfast every morning has been here since yesterday afternoon and must be here until Monday evening at 10pm. She is such a dear woman and must put up with hikers hanging around the lobby all day talking about the trail, pack weights, weather, where other hikers are staying, where to eat, where to buy food for the next part of the hike, etc. We offered to bring something back from the restaurant but she said her husband was going to bring something to her. Well, we decided that we would get her a gift certificate for her and her husband to enjoy sometime at the River's Edge. I forgot to write that after I woke up this morning I could not talk--I mean, I have laryngitis, I guess. I have been squeaking and croaking all day whenever I try to talk. I hope it gets better before I head out for the trail. The weather is not looking any better here than it is for some other parts of the country. It has been raining here today and has gotten quite windy and cold. The forecast for Sunday is for snow and rain. But that is for down here--up in the mountains it will most likely be worse with lower temperatures. So it looks like I will not be starting out at least until Monday. I'm glad Red Hat came back to town since she would have been up there on Roan Mountain (over 6000 feet). The thru-hiker's companion book says that it is arguably the coldest spot, year-round, on the southern AT. Since the cough medicine I took did not do much for keeping my cough away or for helping me to sleep, I will skip it tonight and take the generic night-time cough medicine tonight. I hope it works better. Tomorrow morning Toto and T-2 are leaving for home. For the first time I will be on my own without help from a hiking partner to make decisions. I'll face that tomorrow.