3/29/01
Today has been an interesting and fun day hanging out in Wesser at the NOC! We got up this morning by 7a.m. and took long HOT showers. What a luxury!! Sure enough, the rain had kicked in over night and was steady and the mountains around us were fogged in. We walked over to the River's End Restaurant for a power thru-hiker breakfast! I had the veggie hashbrown platter which was an enormous heap of tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, green and red bell peppers over home fried hash browns, topped with cheddar cheese and fresh salsa...yum!! Our hiker hunger is just beginning! As we sat and ate, we kept a watchful eye on the trail for thru-hikers to emerge off the mountain. Sure enough, "Bumrunner", "Terrorist", and "Rice Paddy" came down and joined us at our table, then "Polaris" who we hadn't seen for days popped in and joined us. While eating, an NOC employee (Scott) who is a programmer here came in for a "to go" order and volunteered to take us with him to Bryson City for supplies or food during the lunch hour. We would take him up on his offer! Before we were through with breakfast, "Mo" came down with her dog "Addy" and joined us at the table. There was great conversation and fun catching up on trail experiences and the social scene, ie. who has quit, who is ahead or behind, who is struggling, etc.
We hung out until around 11 a.m., went to the outfitter to check on our bump boxes (they were there), then caught our ride to Bryson City with Scott (King Yogi) and his wife "Butterfly" and "Mo" and "Addy" in the back seat (King Yogi is allergic to canines). They dropped us off at the grocery store and we oohed and ahhed over the vast array of fresh produce (funny how the things you take for granted become big issues after a couple of weeks on the trail) and fresh meats. We bought a nice bottle of Merlot to give to Dave and Kelly to celebrate Kelly's birthday tomorrow (Big 25) and some miscellaneous items. Yogi and Butterfly picked us up and we headed back to Wesser. King Yogi shared some stories with us about his thru-hike in 1994, most notably being kicked out of all you can eat restaurants for eating too much food (what's up with that?), trading a gourmet dinner for 4 lbs. of Kit Kat bars, eating 17 plates of food in 24 hours, etc. I can't imagine that yet but the guy swears he lost 70 lbs and he's not that big a guy even now.
When we got back to NOC, we picked up our bump boxes and came back to the kitchen area (basecamp) and split a bottle of Chardonnay and had lunch. About the time we finished lunch, Miel (from Atlanta) came into the kitchen area. We hadn't seen her since Neel's Gap and knew from trail register entries at shelters that she was ahead of us, so we were shocked to see that we had passed her. Miel was soaked and anxious to do laundry, but the washer and dryer in the ladies restroom were out of order so we arranged to have her laundry done in the men's room. Miel had her food drop spread out and was planning to go all the way to Davenport Gap with it (100+ miles including the Smoky Mtn. National Park). She must have had 20 lbs of food! We convinced her to break up the food, so we're delivering a box to Fontana Dam (30 miles from here) to help her with the weight issue.
Tonight we had dinner with Dave and Kelly, Tom and C.W. (other thru-hikers). C.W. is a photographer who is possibly putting together a complete photojournal of the AT. We exchanged e-mail addresses as he had taken some photos of us earlier today, just in case we end up on the pages of some table book someday! While eating dinner, a large group of thru-hikers came in to eat, among them Preacher, Seawolf and Doodlebug. It was great to see that they made it down to Wesser through the heavy rain today. After dinner we came back to the basecamp kitchen area to write our journals. A young lady (Tara) came in with various and sundry drinks and for some reason decided she wanted to make me a drink. I accepted, and we talked for a while. She's in training as a river guide for the summer and is here rafting the Nantahala River for practice. I'm glad I don't have to get in 33 degree water, even in a wetsuit! Overall, it was a great ZERO mile day. My foot is swollen but doesn't hurt a bit and everyone who passes through the kitchen wants to play doctor and help me. Still loving every minute of this great adventure! RABBIT
