AT Adventures: Day 10, 6-24

It was a long and arduous day, but with great reward at the end. Our titanic struggle of the day was Albert Mountain. It didn't actually climb that far, but it climbed very steeply. So we only had about 500' of elevation gain, but it took...a while, because it was crammed into maybe 1/4 mile. We gutted that out, and find an observation tower on top. This was glorious, it was wonderfully tall and gave us this incredible view of the surrounding countryside. We took a series of pictures from it that you could string together and get the idea of being up there...it was pretty incredible. The valleys just opened up before us, with the rippling mountains testaments to what we had earlier clambered over, and what we had ahead of us. Really neat spot.
The next event of our trip was looming up on us: a hitchhike into Franklin. We were going to be on a very well traveled road, but one that had a decent speed limit associated with it. We needed to find a spot that would let drivers see us, have the thought to pick us up, then have a place to pull over in order to pick us up. I'll talk a little more about that in the planned post on hitchhiking. So we stick our thumbs out, and wait. Driven by many times (it happens), we got a thumbs up from one truck, but they were just being ignorant and 'joking with us' (they didn't stop, but turned and laughed at us as they continued on), waved at several times, then a guy swung in. We scooted on over and tossed our bags and ourselves in, and off we were. We had heard of a place that had good hiker rates, so we asked to be dropped off there, and he said he didn't know where that was. Which was bad. But he offered to show us the PO first, so we said: sure. As we were rolling along, we spotted the hotel of which we had heard. So he showed us the PO (a stroll down from the hotel), and then dropped us off. We signed in, got our room, and were a little taken aback by how...very...very...70s it all was. But that was ok, because the shower worked! And we scrubbed very well. Oh, how well we scrubbed. And then we washed our clothing in the sink. Although there was a laundromat, we were wearing all the clothing we had, so no laundromat for C and I. After that, we strolled around, wandered down to Ace Hardware to see when they opened the next day, bought some water (a gallon) and (glorious!) a pint of Ben and Jerry's Vermonty Python Ice Cream of Joy and Ecstasy. Then we walked the other direction, dropped our stuff off (freezer compartment in the fridge in our room!), and walked to Dominoes. Ordered a 3:5 dealie, 3 medium pizzas for $5 each. I asked the guy, 'I'm assuming this is the best way to get the most pizza for the least money?' To which he said, 'Yes'. To which Caleb and I said, 'SWEET!' One Pepperoni, One Sausage, and One Cheese, back to the room, and a present was handed to us there. 'Enter the Dragon' was on TV, and had just started! So we tucked into Pizza. Each of us killed about a pizza, so we had what amounted to one left over. Then we cracked open the Vermonty Python, and grabbed our respective Sporks of Power. We started eating, and both of us confessed afterwards that we thought the other was getting more, so we kept increasing the amounts we grabbed. But the joy! Ben and Jerry, how I love both of thee! They are glorious people. Really. Very much so. So we wrapped up the movie and tried to go to bed, but I had a really hard time sleeping. It was much lighter than we were used to (streetlights lit the room, even through the shades), and very much louder. The AC had to be on, or it got unbearable (the most uncomfy a night had been until that point), and that was loud. The cars outside, they were loud. The bed...well, my hammock is pretty much the best thing ever, and it trumped that bed. Also, I had a bellyful (quite quite full) of pizza and ice cream that had lots of chocolate/caffeine in it, which I had not had in a while. So after a while, eventually, we got to sleep.