AT Adventures: Day 28, 7-12-07

Another crazy day! We made it in to Erwin, TN. The AT goes practically through the town. There are a few hostels in the area, Uncle Johnny’s and Ms Janet’s. We had heard wonderful things about the latter of the two, so we wanted to go there. Unfortunately, it was in town. Uncle Johnny’s is actually on the trail itself. We had 13 miles to go from where we camped to the town itself, so we covered those really quickly. In time for lunch quickly. It was crazy how quickly that distance fell. It was a bit of a mental battle though…we were switchbacking our way down this cliff towards the town. We’d go for a while, switchback, switchback again, and the river would still be a long way away. I don’t know how that worked, but I wasn’t happy. Anyway, we make it out and cross the bridge, then stick out our thumbs to get a ride into Ms. Janet’s. A few cars passed us, and then one stops. So-Close is with C and I, and a group this large…I was worried about us getting a ride. But this lady stops. So we ask her if she knows about Ms Janet’s and she says yes. So we get in, and as soon as my butt hit the seat, I knew I needed to get out of this car. It was a very clear message from my gut to my everything else. I shouldn’t have been in that car. But she was already driving…so I had my nerves on edge the entire time. I didn’t know what exactly the deal was, but she had a bandage on her cheek, and said a Brown Recluse had bitten her and she’d had surgery on her face. There are people who think that spiders are either Brown Recluses or Black Widows. She’s probably one of those, because a Brown Recluse bite on her face would probably kill her. That doesn’t change the fact that she was on something. Either super huge painkillers or something illegal. The ride was only 3 miles, but I was on pins and needles the entire time. She pulls in, and we bail. Then she won’t leave. We all want her to, because by now we’ve all seen the ‘Ms Janet’s is closed for the year’ sign, and want to get back to Uncle Johnny’s. But by any other means than her. Because she’s sketchball. So she finally leaves, and we decide to get a burrito before we do anything else. Because thinking on a full stomach is much more pleasant. So we walk to this burrito place, and it is pretty awesome. Huge burrito. Super tasty. We call Uncle Johnny’s, and a person working for him came out to pick us up. Then we settle into our encampment, shower, wash our clothes, and then get a happy surprise. We had left Krebopple and Mcgyver a while back, and were sad about that. But then they showed up! Super awesome! So we hung out with them, and met this other guy (Tea-time) that we had hiked with for a while way back when. He was getting off the trail…it wasn’t for him. As we talked with him, it came out that he had started quite a while ago, but for some reason, just didn’t get any sort of distance done. I think perhaps that’s why he had such a hard time…you’ve got to keep moving and keep checking off distances, or it would get frustrating pretty quickly. Anyway, dinnertime. The Uncle Johnny of Uncle Johnny’s shuttles us to town, where we have a choice. C, So-Close, and I head towards the Pizza Hut buffet, while they go to the Mexican food place. We acquitted ourselves well in Pizza Hut. By that, I mean we ate an embarrassing amount of food. Cleared the buffet twice, for a grand total of 21 plates. 7 each. I could barely move. It was glorious. Then we had to go buy some food. So we waddled to the grocery and did that. Back to the place, and watched a ridiculous movie called Formula 51, with Samuel L Jackson and some other people. Ridiculous movie.