Since our last entry from Erwin a lot has happened. We've seen four bears through the hills (none of them threatening). We've stayed at a really great hostel and a not so great hostel. We were treated to a great big picnic on the top of Max Patch. And we've begun to set our watch by the regular afternoon thunderstorms.
We had hear the bears between Erwin and Hot Springs were very active. We did a 25-mile slack-pack from Sams Gap into Erwin our first day out with Uncle Johnny's help. Thankfully this meant we didn't need to linger around the No Business Knob Shelter where a resident bear hangs out looking for gullible hikers.
We had a good stay with Uncle Johnny. He had bicycles we could ride into town on the bike path. We thoroughly enjoyed all the buffets Erwin had to offer: Chinese and Pizza. It was a nice change to move around at bicycle speed as opposed to walking speed. On our hike out of Erwin we had a little dog follow us for a good 10 miles. The dog had a tag with phone number but the number was out of service. We think it might have been a lost dog we had seen a posting about near the Mountaineer Falls Shelter about 100 miles back. We finally passed a couple of overnight hikers who were headed back to Ashville that day and offered to take the dog with them to an SCPA. The dog was nice company while we had it. But we didn't have enough food to feed it all the way to Springer!
We were excited to hike into Hot Springs, our last town directly on the trail. We had heard lots of good things about Elmer's, a hostel/Inn with a lot of personality. Unfortunately our stay there wasn't especially great. We met some other cool hikers staying/working there, but Elmer himself wasn't who we expected him to be. He was very biased toward thru-hikers, much preferring them to section-hikers. Since we aren't going to be completing the trail in one calendar year (it will be 14 months instead) he told us we were
second-class citizens to thru-hikers and charged us more for our stay than he charges his thru-hikers (most of which have only walked 270 miles of the trail thus far). Instead of being the interested and curious trail personality we had heard he was, we were disappointed with how he discriminated among hikers based on how they have chosen to hike. We left Hot Springs disappointed.
But our spirits were lifted when two of my (Bluebird's) uncles joined us at the Roaring Fork Shelter, having walked down from Max Patch. We camped out together and shared a little of our life on the trail with them. The next morning we all hiked up to Max Patch and met the rest of the family for a wonderful fried chicken picnic in the grassy field. It was about the most beautiful setting for a picnic imaginable. Buster and I then went on to hike the remaining 16 miles into Davenport Gap after lunch. We had arranged for our family to pick us up there at a certain time. In our rush, I strained my knee a little. This only encouraged us to take the next two days off at my Grandparent's house near Waynesville. Our time off has been great! It's nice to be with family around the holiday.
We head back out into the Smokies tomorrow. It looks the whole first day will be spent climbing up. Right now our projected end-date is around the 16th of July. Time is going to fly!
Bluebird (and Buster)
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