First Zero and Trail Name Fails

Waking up Tuesday morning in the hotel was fantastic. I ate breakfast in the breakfast room, which was great. It had already started to lightly rain, which made me feel good about taking a zero day after eight straight days of hiking. I needed to run a few errands, and the first order of business was getting to the laundromat. As I mentioned already, the washing machines at the Holiday Inn weren’t operational, but I actually think it was better for me to go to the laundromat anyway, because it had better machines and was a lot faster. Thankfully, it was only about a quarter of a mile away from the hotel. While I was at the laundromat, I was able to talk to my dad on the phone for a little bit, which was nice.

 Once my laundry was done, I popped into Dollar General for a few little things and went back to the hotel. I had to hang up my shirts rather than putting them through the dryer because they're wool, which might sound kind of strange — wool T-shirts? — but Merino wool shirts are kind of a new thing for sportswear.

I brought an extra shirt with me, a very lightweight button-down, and I'm glad I did, because otherwise, I wouldn't have any shirts to wear while my hiking clothes are in the wash. So that served as my in-town shirt, and I wore my second pair of shorts, so I didn't have to walk around with just my rain pants on, which is a common practice among thru-hikers.

 Next, I went to the supermarket and did an official resupply, and I was back in my room by around 12:30, which was fantastic. It was gray and rainy and yucky out. I’d had this big idea that I was going to walk around town and pop into a bar and have a couple beers and all that stuff, but the lure of a comfortable hotel room on a gloomy day when I was tired was just too much to resist. So I did nothing.

I watched some dumb TV, sorted through some gear issues that I had, tweaked some things on my backpack, and just kind of basked in the glory of doing nothing. The other benefit of being in a hotel was I got to talk to S. on video twice, which was really nice. It made me feel much more connected to her. Kind of a boring day, but it was fantastic.

Now it’s 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 27, and I’m at the Muskrat Creek Shelter. I’m in North Carolina! One state down. Thirteen to go. I just crossed over the state line maybe three miles ago. The Muskrat Creek shelter’s pretty populated this evening, but I’m a little disappointed that when I was walking around, I didn’t hear a single person mention Captain and Tennille. But maybe that's just me.

This morning, I had breakfast at the hotel again. I got an omelet and a cinnamon roll and all of those things that feel like guilty temptations when you're not walking all day. But when you’re hiking, you look at things through the lens of How many calories can I get into my body so I can sustain myself? So, I put away as many calories as I could.

After I packed up and checked out, I caught the free shuttle that the town of Hiawassee provides during the months of March and April to bring hikers into town. It’s a great idea for the town, and the hikers definitely appreciate it. So the shuttle took me from Hiawassee to Dick’s Creek Gap, which is where I’d gotten off the trail on Monday night. I’d been feeling a little nervous about hiking today, because there was a lot more uphill than downhill. I think someone looked on an app that said the total uphill would be about 4,500 feet.

That doesn’t mean we go up 4,500 feet from where we started, but the up-and-down nature of the trail had us hiking 4,500 feet by the end of it all. Fortunately, after my day off, I had pretty fresh legs, plus clean clothes and all that, and things went better than I’d expected. The first break I took was actually about five and a half miles in, which is an unusually long stretch for me to go without a break. I mean, I stopped to catch my breath here and there, but this was the first break where I took my pack off.

The hike was basically just up and long — in total, about 11 and a half miles. I got to camp at around 5 o’clock, and I set up sort of off to the side. I’m glad I did, too, because there appears to be some sort of role-playing game going on at the shelter right now that I'm not anxious to participate in. It's nice to be on the fringes a little bit.

I made myself some ramen with tuna, and I used the little koozie system I’d made for the first time. It worked really well, so I was happy about that. Then I went to hang my bear bag, but that turned out to be somewhat of a debacle because there was a massive knot in the line.

 I saw a comment on an earlier post asking whether or not I get lonely, and the answer is... no. There are actually more than a few other guys who are sort of around my age that are also not overly interested in all of the activities around the campfire, so to speak.

I’ve gotten two more trail name suggestions, but I'm not terribly excited about either one of them. The first one was when I was talking to a nice woman at the Trail Magic stop on Monday. She was asking about my plans, and I told her about going into Hiawassee and divulged all of my plans to her, and she said, “Oh, great tips! Maybe your trail name should be Tip Man.” [Wife note:😬] Besides not sounding very cool, it’s got some sort of naughty connotations with it. So, no thank you.

Then, there’s a guy on the trail from Arkansas who gave himself the trail name Arkansas (big points for originality there), and he thinks I should be called Bob's Pizza. The story behind that is when I was at Neel's Gap, there was a flurry of people ordering pizzas. When you place your order, you give them your name, and they bring it out to you when it’s ready.

So, I‘m sitting there, and this guy comes out and yells, “Bob! Pepperoni pizza.” I’d ordered a pepperoni pizza, and I regularly get called Bob instead of Rob by people who don’t know me, so I waved my hand and said, “Yeah, over here!” It was rocket hot, so I just let it sit in front of me for a minute or so, because I value the skin on the roof of my mouth.

But apparently, some guy named Bob had ordered a pepperoni pizza ahead of me, and when he realized that he hadn't gotten his pizza yet, he inquired about it. So the people from Mountain Crossings came out and said, “Hey, you're not Bob, you're Rob.” And I said, “Yep,” and they took the pizza away and gave it to Bob. Everyone had a little chuckle, because they thought I was trying to steal someone’s pizza, but that hardly seems worthy of a trail name, you know? It's kind of like, “Nice story, Jeopardy contestant.” [Wife note: That’s a joke from the E! show “The Soup.”]

Anyway, I'll shut things down there, and I'll probably hit the hay pretty soon, maybe listen to a podcast or read a little bit or whatever. You get into your tent at around 8 o'clock at night, and that's it. It's a fairly relaxing way to end the day. We'll see what happens tomorrow.