Day 29, 7-13-07

It was an early morning today, which was very odd, since dinner, buying groceries, and the movie afterwards had me up late. But I got up early, and then I soaked in a shower. It was glorious. I felt like a real human, showering twice in as many days…crazy. Then to Huddle House for breakfast. That’s basically the same thing as Waffle House, except its called Huddle House. Huge breakfast, and it was wonderful. In spite of the…ridiculous amount of calories we had eaten last night, I woke up hungry. We ran a few more errands, then back to the place. Loaded up on a few dehydrated meals, water, and checked out. We were on our way again! We started a little worried about the rain, but it cleared up/didn’t happen, and that was happy times. It was a great day for hiking, and we made it to a wonderful Bald clear spot called ‘Beauty Spot’ (it was pretty awesome) and got cell reception. Caleb called his girlfriend, I called Mom, and we wandered on. We passed a spot that we could have camped at, but we kept rolling. There was a mountain in front of the shelter we were heading to that we had to climb, and it was really awesome. At the top, it was fully treed in with pines, but the lower branches had long since fallen off. The canopy was very full, so even though the pines didn’t have lower branches, the tops kept out any sunlight which would let anything else grow. So it was super open, with just trunks of trees, moss, and springy pine needles underfoot. It felt like a forest from another world…I’m used to undergrowth and bushes, or at the very least, grass lining the trail. It was quite the enjoyable hike, being able to see around fairly well. Made it to the shelter about 16 miles from Uncle Johnny’s, and set up. It was impressively dark at that point, so we ate and dove into our hammocks pretty quickly. At about 9 (in the pitch dark of night in the mountains under trees), we heard crashing noises, and both of us got a little tense. Then heard So-Close. She called her parents at the same spot we had, but perhaps an hour later, and then had a long conversation, so by the time she started again, it was getting dark. Since she’s a determined hiker, she got her headlamp on and kept trucking.

Caleb, rolling out.


















A neat food bridge.


















We were to climb that shortly.













Powerline cuts aren't wonderful, but they give decent views.













The marker, C, and a nice little field.













Me in the field.













Picture from Beauty Spot














The neat open woods.