Angels on Easter

AT angels that is but I’ll get to that. So Hot Springs has come and gone and it was nothing short of perfect. We met Meaghan and her Mom in the early after noon. Remember, 10 days on the trail no shower. Needless to say the car ride to the cabin was windows down. Cleaning up was extremely refreshing but Mrs. O’Hanlon insisted on completely filling us up. Pasta sides and Ramen isn’t the most appealing meal to eat everyday. The lasagna we ate could have been from Italy for all we know. Oh yeah and we got to wear sweatpants and cotton t-shirts the whole time. The next day (the 19th) was our first zero day. We didn’t do a single foot of hiking on the AT and it definately felt good. We did some laundry and shopping but the day was extremely relaxing. It also rained all day Wednesday and I have since realized that rain hitting a roof is my favorite sound. Steaks and potatoes (with a salad mom) followed but a couple of extremely intense and fun games of Taboo and Pictionary. It was really nice to meet Meaghan’s mom and of course to see Meaghan again. I hope they enjoyed some of our wild tales of the trail. It was really nice to just be clean and in good company. We are extremely appreaciative of all they did for us. Including an enormous gift basket completely stacked with goodies and candy and anything we could possibly dream of while hiking.

It was weird getting back on the trail late thursday. In just two days my mind had let it slip that I was actually living in the woods and trying to hike the entire Eastern coast. But when you wake up that next morning and your back is a little sore you know exactly what you are doing. Lucky for us we heard about a little trail magic 6.5 miles up trail and we were going to make it for lunch. This is where we found the AT angels. ‘Fal’ and ‘Hercules’ are Thru-hikers who did the trail in ‘99 and fell in love with it. They bought a house 200 yards from the trail and this is their 4th year running doing magic. They have a sign (hopefully I’ll put up a picture) directing us to their house. We stopped for lunch and what we ate in order was: Rootbeer Float, Picadillo, homemade apple pie with ice cream, and a brownie sundae a little later when we had room. Then they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. It was Friday and they would drive us to a gap 20 miles North on the trail. We would then hike south (making us SoBo’s) back to their house where we would stay Saturday night and they would feed us as much as we wanted and then take us and whoever else was here to church on Easter Sunday. We immediately agreed.

So yesterday we did our first southbound hiking and boy let me tell you it was wierd. Everything in my body was telling me that I was going the wrong direction. We hiked in about 8 miles and woke up this morning to do the next 12. We made sure we made it by lunch. We passed some guys we hiked with northbound and they at first were confused but then realized they had heard about us and were jealous that we got to go to the AYCE chinese joint for lunch tomorrow. Right now at the house there is the two of us and 3 other thru-hikers that we had spent about 2 days each with throughout the smokies.

So we are clean now and get to sleep inside. Really excited that we get to go to church tomorrow and we get to sleep indoors. Last night we stayed with an Auburn grad so we got another ‘War Eagle’ on the trail. So know now that we are sleeping with True AT angels. They do this 4 months a year and have fed over 1400 people.