Good-bye Smokies and Hello Hot Springs

Well, we've had quite the adventure these past few weeks. Officially Megan and I have passed our three week mark, encountered numerous thunderstorms, walked over the largest dam this side of the Mississippi River, out-paced many of our fellow hikers, and have plodded through over 250 miles of this blessed trail.

Update on the achilles: I entertained the thought of taking a week off to let it heal when the zero day in Franklin, N.C. didn't really do the trick. But somehow from Franklin to the N.O.C. (3 day journey) the achilles healed midstride. I've been babying it a bit, but for the most part I don't have to worry about it at all. So thanks to all who have prayed for my recovery, it has been doing great as of late.

I knew the 16 days of sunshine would come to an end abruptly, and of course it did, as soon as we set foot in the Smoky Mountain National Park. We combatted two thunderstorms from atop the highest peaks around. Very scary indeed. And trudged through mud and slop pretty much the entire 70 miles of the park. Needless to say, we were ecstatic to leave the park and continue north toward Hot Springs, N.C., our next resupply point.

Just leaving the park didn't really guarantee that we wouldn't get blasted by rain, and let me tell you, we did. It had been days since we had seen the sun, annoyance and depression were overcoming us ever so swiftly. The shelter that we had planned to stay in on Wednesday was full. No room in the "inn", so to speak. We trudged on, trying to locate a campsite. The rain set in. We found a campsite, not optimal, it was on a slight slope, which proved to be a huge mistake. I should know better, but when you are tired, hungry, and wet, sometimes the "grey matter" up yonder, doesn't really function very well. We set up the tarptent in the pouring rain (mind you the tarptent has no floor), we put down our plastic sheeting that we use as the floor of the tent and within minutes the runoff from the slope was washing into our tent. Megan says, "What are we going to do?" Good question. I remember my mom telling me how you can sometimes trench around a tent to direct the flow of water away from it. Bright idea for groggy mind, eh? I step out into the downpour, which has now become a festival of lightning and thunder. I take our tiny little, bright orange trowel and begin to dig a trench from the slope toward the side of the mountain, directly in front of our tent. I build up a little dam along the front of our tent and direct the runoff toward the steep cliff to our side. It seemed to work much better than I thought. I'd like to say we stayed dry that night, but though my trench worked wonders, we managed to get about everything we were carrying wet and muddy. Fell asleep around 4 a.m. when it stopped raining, didn't want to get up the next morning, knowing all was wet and nasty. But alas, the sun shone the next day and we had time to dry most everything out.

And here I am in Hot Springs, N.C. staying at a cool little thru-hiker inn, enjoying the sunshine and loving my life once again. Thanks to all who have sent notes of encouragement and goodies along the way. They are greatly appreciated, there are really no words to describe the elation, honestly.

A note to all who are following Megan and I on our itinerary. We are about 4 days ahead of schedule. We will be getting to Erwin, T.N. by May 3/4 probably. So if you are sending things, keep that in mind.