Day 11, 6-25

•We woke from our semi-restless sleep and set out around Franklin to run our errands. Our first trip was to Ace Hardware, to see if we could secure some more denatured alcohol. We were running a wee bit low, and it was time to tank that up again. We walk in and poke around, to find that the smallest container is one that's at least twice as large as what we're carrying. So either we would buy it, and then toss the rest, or...well, we weren't sure. So we walk to the lady at the counter, ask about it, and she pulls out a huge jug of it. 'Oh, I just charge $1 to fill up for hikers.' Sweet! So we filled our little Nalgene and trucked on over to the hotel. On our way back we swung by a little coffee shop...I got a tea (wonderful! I had been too long without...), and Caleb got a Mocha. Oh, this was crazy! When he asked, the barista said, rather belligerently: 'You mean a latte or a cappacino? We looked at each other, shrugged, and then he said, 'No, I want a mocha.' She says, 'Latte or cappacino?' 'No, a mocha.' 'Latte or cappacino?' 'Mocha'. Then she enlightened us. 'Look. The mocha is the flavor added to it. So you can have a mocha latte or a mocha cappacino. What do you want?' We again looked at each other, shrugged, and then he committed. 'latte I guess'. And it was right. And tasty. But almost not worth the hassle. It was a very surreal scene that we laughed about as soon as we got from out of sight. From the hotel, we moseyed down to the PO with an emptied backpack. We show up, ask for our package, they look at our ID and duck inside. Then they return about 10 minutes later. With nothing. 'Sorry guys, I don't see anything. We haven't finished sorting the mail though, so maybe it's back here, and we just don't know it. Why don't you stick around?' I don't know if the person realized what they had just done to our world, but it sorta collapsed a little bit. We dazedly wandered back to the far wall, and looked at each other. 'Well, we gotta wait, but what if it doesn't get here in time?' We tossed about a few options, none too pleasing, and both wished we had called our address ahead, rather than mailed the address ahead. Then, joy of joys, the lady opens the gate and says, 'Now, where are my hikers?' Glorious! There were two boxes of food waiting for us, and they were wonderfully scrumptious and tasty. Letters! Actual people liked us enough to write us! This was also very exciting. Caleb and I make for good company, but at this point...well...we had pretty much divulged every major thing that was occurring in each others' lives, every minor thing, and now we were in conversational limbo. There isn't a whole lot to say after 10 days of hanging out, talking non-stop. We load up the backpack and wander back to the hotel, pack up, and then go to the office. We had used the interwebs earlier in the office, and from talking to the office worker, the guy that owns the place runs a shuttle for hikers, to get back to the trail. So we told the worker we needed to use that, and then hopped on the interwebs for a bit before he showed up. Then he showed up, and C and I got the first good ride with a weird person we had. This guy was a piece of work. Really fascinating character, had done a lot of things, been a lot of places, and sounded like he had some really incredible stories. But he was also laden with prejudices, which was sad.
We get dropped off, and set out for a little bit, and then paused. Franklin was a nice enough little town, but Caleb and I had repeatedly throughout our visit, said to each other: this feels dirtier than the woods. The woods have dirt, but its good clean dirt. Worms hang out in it, bugs crawl around in it, but that's all. Franklin felt grimy. The whole time I was there I felt gross...the air seemed a bit closer, everything seemed happening very helter-skelter, and it didn't feel as clean as the woods. We looked at each other, and expressed the same thought: I'm glad to be out in the woods again. We moved on forward, ate lunch, and then it started to rain. Boo. It rained very consistently. We flailed our way up Wayah Bald, and midway up the climb, I had to pause. There was this incredible smell that I had just stumbled into, and I stood and smelled for a long time. It was wonderful. It was sweet and spicy and seemed to be something good to eat or drink, almost like the air was turned into some sort of aetherial vapor that could possible manage to nourish us. I smelled for quite a while, the rain pattering down around us. This was the first rainstorm that I really enjoyed. It wasn't too cold, the rain was a bit annoying, as rain always is in the woods, but it was also very nice to have. We made it through the bald part, and then got to the top, where we discovered a castle! This was a really neat stone watchtower set up a long time ago to monitor something or other that I've forgotten now. We walked up it, around it, surveyed the land, and then sat in the dry bottom room and talked a while about Franklin, our future plans on towns (less time in, the better), and let our things drip off a bit. This empty stone room had these reverberating acoustics that made it a joy to talk in, so we started randomly singing 'The Lion Sleep tonight'. Then some AC/DC (for those about to rock, we salute you...), then back to Lion Sleeps. It was great. Then we set off again. We didn't know where we were going to end up that night, seeing as there wasn't a shelter near us. Or so we thought. so we were gonna just wander down and see what happened. And then, about a mile from the tower, we found a brand new shelter! It had a nice clean privy (a composting toilet-they're great when clean), planks that smelled like new wood, no graffiti or markings (I know those are bad, but I always enjoy looking around and seeing who's been there), no mice (hugely rare), and only a few log entries. So we decided to stop. Set up, did our thing, and called it a night.
Btw, Tom gets awesome points for knowing what a Frood Fellow is! Thanks for reading and commenting!

Glad to be back in the woods!













A bald right after the climb from Franklin, up 'Winding Stair Gap'












Neat flowers that we came across. Note the shiny leaves: they're wet, because its raining.












These guys may be the culprits to the enchanting smell. I'm not sure. But they were really neat, and exploding in profusion near Wayah Bald.











The picture doesn't do it justice, but there was a corridor that was covered in these flowers. It was an orange wonder.











We're both feeling really good after the rain, and the walk, and all that. Good times.












View from Wayah Bald













The Tower! See Caleb at the top?


















View from the top of the tower.













The courtyard and a plaque explaining the original purpose of the tower.












The clouds and the mountains. It was really incredible in person.












The trail, leading off away from the courtyard. You can see a blaze on the stones of the walkway.

















Caleb took a picture of me going 'AweeeeeEEEEEEE-um mum ma-wet' from the Lion Sleeps Tonight Song. I'm on the EEEE part...Good times...