04-14-13 A Cheeseburger Explosion Somewhere

Tried to sleep in but still woke up early--6:30 a.m.

Wandered around town for awhile then ran into Bamboo, Shaman, Morning Kid, Bluebird and...Wooden Spoon! We had a small breakfast with them at the local diner--we were saving room for the coup de gras later.

We enjoyed town with Wooden Spoon before she headed off the Asheville for a couple days. We restocked our food, updated the blog, then were ready for bigger plans.

The cheeseburger explosion--actually it was named "the Big Laurel"--a hamburger patty sandwiched between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Probably not the best food decision I've ever made before heading off into the woods without restrooms for the next five or so days, but I highly recommend.

We decided to "Nero" today and hiked four miles. There were some gorgeous views of Hot Springs from Lovers Leap Rock. We met up with Olive Oyl and Wet Bag and squeezed into their campsite. We are on red alert now as we've entered ground zero of the rumored norovirus. For the next 70 miles into Erwin, TN we are in the hot zone--Bubble B anyone?

04-13-13 Rolling Down to Hot Springs Together

Woke up to the wind assaulting our tent. Everything held up fine and we were up and going by 8:00. K got her typical head start (B packs later).

Plan was to hike 11.7 miles to Hot Springs by 3ish and split a cabin. Maybe motivated by food or maybe her new trail legs, but K wasn't caught until mile 11ish and both of us were in town by 1.

Of course there were no cabins left nor any rooms, so we went into town hoping for divine intervention. We quickly found a Christian ministry on Main Street provided free showers so that was stop 1.

Stop 2 was the laundromat for clean clothes and electrical outlets. Ultimately, we had to dry our clothes on a tree outside because we took them out of the dryer and by the time we went to put them back in all the dryers were filled. It was a funny sight to behold.

Stop 3 was the outfitter where B got some shoes and tent repair--we had a small hole in our rainfly.

We had dinner at a diner down the street followed by ice cream from the Dollar Store. We split a campsite at the nearby resort and enjoyed some premium beer (PBR) around the campfire with friends. Didn't have to set up a bear bag tonight.