Here we are again. Back at the Fontana Hilton, the “hotel” of the Appalachian trail shelters. There are flush toilets, showers and room to sleep 24. And let me tell you, it looks like there will be that many here tonight! 8 days behind our original visit to this place and wow, we’ve hit the prime time for northbound thru-hikers. We were a little ahead of the
curve before. Now that the weather tends to be a bit more consistently warm, it’s the time when lots of folks start their hikes.
So we’re behind all of our former buddies and we may or may not catch up. From all we’ve been told, thru-hiking is like a giant game of leap frog. We had to take off for 8 days early on, but others may have to do that in the future. We may run into hikers in Maine that we haven’t seen since Georgia. Since we got out of the trail regimen, we’re going to be a bit off our game for a few days. Everyone around us is new to us. It’ll likely be another few days until we feel like we have real trail buddies again. But everyone here is nice and we have food to work off from being home and eating lots and lots of comfort foods. We might be slow for a couple days, but it’s nice to be back.
~Mel
Kudos for going back!
Thanks, Paula!
Glad to know you’re starting this leg of your journey “smelling sweet!”
Sweet is certainly relative out here! 🙂
Wow I’m surprised there are so many other people who are walking with you.
Can it be a little frustrating to not be able to set a comfortable pace, if you get behind a slow crowd of hikers?
Sounds like the better weather may cause rush hour on the trail.
Well I guess with all of your planing you have done, you two will able to follow your dream,regardless of the difficulties you face.
Say Mike my GED test results finally arrived in the mail.
I scored pretty high on everything but math which I failed by one question.
At least I know what to focus on,and will continue attending the Friday math lab,that you were giving me a lot of help with.
To say I miss your teaching is an understatement,however carry on,and please be safe as you take each step to complete your goal.
Good to see you two are back on the trail!!! Enzed and I (and a couple new pals we’ve picked up) just got into Uncle Johnny’s hostel outside of Erwin, TN). I guess you two are finishing up the Smokies right now or are headed to Hot Springs at the moment. Hopefully I’ll see y’all before I come off in a month, but if not I’ll definitely keep up with you here!
Keep on truckin’,
High Five!
High Five!! Glad to see you and Enzed are still hiking well! We miss you two but there are lots of nice hikers 8 days back as well. And it’s nice to see some familiar faces in all of the shelter logs we come to. Long Time and I are in Hot Springs for the day — got in last night to Elmer’s after a full on 17.6 miles in the rain. Our longest day yet though! Hope to see you soon too! Don’t know if we’ll be able to catch up. Please send me your blog address – I never wrote it down.
Happy hiking!
CLiCK!