Zero Day...YAY!

What an amazing first seven days! We've hiked a total of 68 miles within six days and today we're taking a full day off of hiking - "zero day". A storm blew in two nights ago when we were camped up on Tray Mountain. News travels surprisingly fast out here and the word on the trail was that snow was on its way along with very low temperatures. Our plan (along with many others as we later saw) was to get up early on the morning of the 6th (yesterday), grab a bar for breakfast and head out ASAP to hike the 11 miles to the highway to hitch a ride into Hiawassee, GA. We hit the trail by 8:15 a.m. and reached the highway by 11:55 a.m. That could be our best time yet, though we were very motivated by the thought of getting out of the cold wind and into a cozy hostel.

The people here are so kind and helpful to hikers. A gentleman driving into town went out of his way to stop by the trail to see if any hikers needed a lift. This is the type of stuff we've experienced on a regular basis. These people are called "Trail Angels" and their acts of kindness are referred to as "trail magic". At Neels Gap we were treated to a BBQ put on by the
"Trail Dames". Nick put down two burgers, four hot dogs, chips, cookies, an apple & three cups of coffee. Rach ate two burgers, chips, banana & lots of fudge. We then hit some more trail angels at another highway crossing about two hours later where Nick picked up two beers and Rach ate a hot dog & chips. It's incredible; our appetites are HUGE these days, though people have said that the big appetites come later. We're kind of nervous to see how much bigger ours will get.

Last night we stayed at the Blueberry Patch Hostel, which is owned and ran by Gary & Lennie Poteat. They take donations for your stay, do your laundry for you, offer a shower and provide a delicious homemade breakfast in the morning. What lovely people!!! We've also met some wonderful people on the trail; "Bonesy", "Stew Ball", "Blessed", "Old Corpus", "Bark" & "Berry" just to name a few.

Tonight we're staying in town at the Hiawassee Inn. Luckily the library is within walking distance from the motel so we walked up here to jump online. We'll re-supply at the local grocery store, eat dinner out tonight and hit the trail tomorrow morning. Plan is to hit Franklin, NC by Saturday morning stay at another hostel and hit an Easter service somewhere in town. We have nine miles left in Georgia and though it's been beautiful it's been tough with the massive hills that seem to go on forever. We're looking forward to some new terrain.

We want to give a couple special thanks to some people; Lily for our mail drops; the first arrived in Blairsville/Neels Gap on the 3rd and really helped us out! We also want to thank Uncle Ted for driving us all of the way out to the trail head at Mount Springer. We hope you weren't late for your conference call.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers; they're working! We're fighting a few minor aches and pains, but nothing we can't handle. Other than that we are lovin life!

We've included a link below to our flickr account so you can view our photos. Hope you enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22604179@N06/sets/72157616379368219/‏