Day 11 The Revolution

Sun. Sept. 7 No Business Shelter to Curley Maple Gap Shelter 11 miles Weather: wonderful If yesterday was The Awakening, then today is The Revolution. I finally have my equipmwnt right where I want it. Today, I slept-in and packed slow. I hiked six miles downhill to Erwin to meet Dad and Janet. There was by far one of the most beautiful views from a mile southbound from town looking up a valley with the Nolichucky River and railroad bridge. I met up with my family perfectly and we headed straight to Pizza Hut. I ended up having more of a ravenous hunger for the mountain dew than the pizza. We stopped at Whites to get some honey and bread. Heading back to the trail, I learn that Uncle Jerry's hostel had a very nice outfitting store. I bought a new sleeping bag for what I considered not to bad a price. I hiked a while with Dad and Janet and introduced them to Shadow who now had a full pack. It was still at least 10lbs lighter than mine. My dad was pretty funny though. He spent 20 minutes trying to get me to pack more food. Refusing almost everything, I then let him feel the weight of just my food. He spent the next 10 minutes trying to see what we could take out of my pack. Then 5 trying to put in and so on. If I remember my math correctly, this summation quickly converges to 40 minutes, which was about right. Ya, I'm a dork. So that day of rain, I decided to prove that if the digits of a number add up to a multiple of 3, than that number is a multiple of 3. Two mathematical induction proofs penciled in my head later, I was finished. It took 20 minutes, leaving me thinking about why the hell I was out in the rain. Trust me, there's some crazy things to ponder about while out here. I have my pack refitted with food for each day plus one extra, just in case. I'm keeping my current precautions of filtering water and boots instead of tennis shoes for safety's sake. Later, I might change my mind about these practices. My new sleeping bag is so small that I am having to completely change the system I have for packing. I am anxious to get to Damascus by early next week and come back and do Max Patch to Hot Springs. At that point I will have completed all on the AT through Tennessee, a nice early accomplishment. Thanks a ton Dad and Janet, today was such a great help. High: not carrying a week's worth of extra food Low: pizza was no more amazing than my camp food. I guess this is a good thing too.