Bed Today, Puddle Tomorrow
So it’s Tuesday, April 9, and I’m at the Days Inn in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I was going to ask about a hiker’s room rate at the outfitters in town, but S. found a really great deal for this hotel online. [Wife note: Supposedly, the room rate the outfitters can typically get at one of the local hotels is about $65 base, but I was able to get a room via Priceline for $58, including all taxes and fees. It’s a good resource for same-day reservations.] I needed to make a resupply stop in Gatlinburg, but it's about a 25- or 30-minute drive from the AT, so it makes sense to spend the night. Besides, it's going to rain a lot tonight, so it'll be nice to be dry and have an actual roof over my head.
This morning, I woke up at the Mount Collins shelter. I say “shelter,” but it's really a campsite. There's technically a shelter there, but it tends to fill up pretty quickly. All the shelters in the Smokies tend to fill up pretty quickly. I'm a little bit hesitant to stay inside any of them, because I don't want to risk coming into close contact with anyone who might have norovirus. So far, the people who have been staying in the shelters and keeping sort of the same agenda as I have seem to all be fine, but I prefer the solitude of my tent nonetheless.
When I woke up this morning, it was still dark, but I got up and got moving anyway, because I wanted to stay ahead of the weather. I knew some rain was going to come in today, so I packed up and hit the trail by 7:30. But I only made it about two miles before the skies opened up. So I didn’t get ahead of it after all, unfortunately.
There's another thru-hiker named Rob who's become kind of an unintentional hiking partner. He's a good guy — former fire chief from Ohio — and he doesn't have a trail name yet, either. And so we’re known in our current bubble as “the two Robs.” But maybe one of us will get a trail name before much longer, and we’ll be able to get away from that.
Anyway, Rob and I were planning to get down to Newfound Gap at about the same time and get a shuttle together. We made it by just a little past 10 o'clock, and the free shuttle into Gatlinburg had left at 10. I think we missed it by about two minutes, which was kind of a bummer, especially because by that time, it was raining pretty hard. I had tried to get through to a shuttle service multiple times on the six-mile hike down, but there just hadn't been any cell service. But now that we were down, I finally managed to get in touch with someone.
While we were waiting for our ride, a bunch of people emerged from the woods who had also stayed at Mount Collins the night before, including Praying Mantis, Yogi, and Harmonica. But those guys were continuing on for the day. They just stopped at Newfound Gap because there’s a flush toilet there. So after taking care of business and organizing their packs to make them a little bit more waterproof, they moved on.
A super nice guy picked me and the other Rob up and dropped us off at the Gatlinburg outfitters, which is a branch of the NOC I’ve mentioned a few times already. I got myself a couple of backpacking meals, and I bought a tarp to go under my tent, because the next several days are going to be wet. That will come in very handy. I also got a pair of long pants, which I’m pretty happy about. When I was paying for all my stuff, the nice lady behind the register said I could keep my pack there while I ran some errands, since it was too early to check in to the Days Inn. So I went to the restroom to dry myself off the best I could and put on some dry clothes. I stuffed all my wet, gross clothes into my backpack and left it with her, then went across the street to the general store to do a little resupply.
The place was called Grampy's General Store or something [Wife note: It’s Old Dad’s General Store.], and it's a very Gatlinburg thing. They clearly know their audience, because they had a lot of things I was looking for. Oatmeal. Cookie sandwiches. Bars. Small packages of beef jerky. Things like that. So that worked out really well.
Next, I headed to the Smoky Mountain Brewery. They brew beer on site, and you can see all the tanks and the brewers busy at work, which was nice. S. told me that she’d heard from an old friend of mine, Rahul, who wanted to buy me a beer or two on the trail, so I took him up on the offer (remotely, of course) while I was here. I enjoyed a couple of pints and a fresh, hot pizza while I was warm and dry and out of the rain, which was just lovely. So cheers, Rahul! And thank you!
Afterward, I walked back to the Days Inn, checked in, and took a shower. They didn't have a washing machine at the hotel, so I brought all my dirty clothes into the shower with me and did the old tub wash. [Wife note: The Days Inn says it has “laundry services” as one of its amenities, but apparently, this just means there’s a laundromat somewhere in town more or less in the vicinity of the hotel. So future hikers, be aware.] Now I'm actively trying to get everything dried out before the morning.
I ran out to Walgreens to pick up some electrolyte mix, because I'm running very low, and I've been relying on that quite a bit lately. I’d decided that I didn't want to go out to eat again for dinner, and my hotel room has a microwave, so while I was at Walgreens, I bought a microwave meal to have in the room, along with a can of Heineken. My clothes are still drying, but by the morning, I hope to be nice and organized and ready to hit the trail in the rain.
As some of you might know, S. grew up in this area and even had various summer jobs in Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Townsend. And in the early years of our relationship, she and I came to Gatlinburg quite a few times. So it was kind of fun to walk up and down the main drag and look at some of the places we went to when we were dating. It's a very kitschy town, but there's sort of an endearing quality about it. I got a kick out of that. I’ll talk to her soon on video, which is always a highlight of my day, and then I’ll get a good night's sleep in a very comfy bed. Tomorrow, I fully expect to be sleeping in a puddle. That'll be fun. But as they say, “No rain, no pain, no Maine.”
I've managed to skirt the rain for the most part so far, so I guess I have to eventually pay the piper, right? The next couple days are supposed to be pretty wet. I'll report back tomorrow!
