Day 33 (Thursday, May 15th) - Whistling Gap to Erwin, TN

Today's Miles: 12.90
Trip Miles: 341.50

The hard rain last night broke up enough to let us get the tents down this morning. We were heading to Erwin to pick up a mail drop for Natalie. Everyone is feeling kind of blah. Let me rephrase that, I'm feeling blah. Rotten mood, surly disposition; all I wanted was to do the 13 miles to Erwin and get a burger and a beer.

The hike out was a roller-coaster. The air was misty as we started and became a full on downpour soon enough. Hiking in the rain isn't that bad except that I get more wet from sweating than I do from the rain. When I stopped to retie my shoe, torrents of sweat poured out of the sleeves of my rain jacket. The weather has turned cool so going without some kind of cover isn't an option. Amy is working on a new jacket for me.

I soloed most of the day. Being miserable and wet left no time for pics and I was just pounding out the miles to get the day done.

When we did get to the Erwin trail-head we decided to stay in town, eat and resupply. We looked at the guide and it seemed like everything was close to the Super 8 so we started walking the 3.4 miles to town down the drizzly road. Fortunately for us, a kind gentleman in a pickup truck pulled over and offered us a ride. He took us right to the door of the motel. Thank you, sir.

The map, or our interpretation of it, wasn't quite what we thought. Things weren't as close as we expected. We walked 1.2 miles to a laundry and 2 miles to a Mex place (the only place in town that served beer with your meal). By the time we sat down to eat I was too exhausted to get the food down. I left the kids and walked back to the motel.

When I got back to the room I looked in the mirror and I could see the problem; I'd lost too much weight too fast. The kids brought back the food I'd left behind and I finished that. I'm going to have to calorie up, fluid up, and put a little weight back on; or at least stop losing. I felt better after eating and talking to the Administrator. We'll try to lighten up the mood and fatten up the old guy over the next few weeks.

Bye for now.