Monday, May 1, 2000
New month-2 days left on the trail. Broke camp a little late and moved out at 9:38 am. 66 degrees. Have long ascent of Kelly Knob. Like always, lots of ups and downs but we are pushing a good pace. Decide to pass up water and climb up and over Kelly Knob and down to the Deep Gap Shelter-that way we aren't carrying the extra weight.

Descend down to Deep Gap for lunch. Lipton’s Soup (2 of them) with some extra bouillon and some tang. Had cream of wheat for breakfast.

Mike went to get water and I stayed up at the trail waiting for the others. Met two thru-hikers-"R&R" and "Dull Knife," 68 and 50 years old respectively. Have it pretty slow going-only 6 or 7 miles a day, but they are here and doing it!

Seems like we haven't seen any full trees. Just seems like the branches are mostly broken off and only a few leaves on the tops of the trees. I am lying on a fallen tree that once blocked the trail. It is pretty smooth and large enough for me to stretch out on and lay in the Sun.

Only 4.6 more miles to go today. 3.6 miles to the highway at Dicks Creek Gap and then 1 more mile to the camp for the night. Tomorrow we are looking at 16.5 miles up and down continuous 500 foot ascents and descents on up to Bly Gap, North Carolina. Looking at hiding our packs in the woods and only taking water and a filter. We will see.

3:00 pm. After an extremely long and painful descent, Mike and I arrive at Dicks Creek Gap and Highway 76, which leads into Hiawassee, Georgia.

Game over. Once the others join us, we decide to stop here and go in for a hotel and a good nights rest.

Long downhill to here, long, long downhill.

3:30 pm. We try to hitch a ride into town (11 miles away) and Mike is successful in getting one from a couple that just came down after camping in Bly Gap.

Todd gets the license plate number of the car that Mike goes off in-just in case...it had Florida plates.

45 minutes later a truck arrives from the Hiawassee Inn-our ride to freedom. We load the packs up and get the 11 mile ride to the beautiful town of Hiawassee. Mountainous, huge 7,000 acre lake-nice. Arrive at the hotel and pay for the room and we make plans to meet after a shower for dinner.

*We left another note for Donny so he would know were we had gone. Last time we saw him he thought we were going to the campsite 1 mile beyond the highway.

We get in the room and how quickly we return to being lazy couch potatoes-TV on, remote in hand, laying on the bed. Mike gets a shower then me. Clean clothes on and we are out the door to get Todd and Skye.

5:15 pm. 86 degrees. The restaurant is 1 mile away (didn’t add these miles in our totals)-no problem!

We past the Post Office and arrived at Daniels Steak House. We initially wanted pizza but the less expensive buffet sounded much better (turns out that it was! The pizza sucked). Our eyes bulge and our stomachs do too as we soak up fried chicken, baked ham, rolls, salad, cake and cups and cups of sweet tea! All for only $6.77! What a great meal!

Walked back to the hotel and stopped on the way to buy some beers to take back to the room. We all pile in one room and watched TV and drank beers. I can't even finish one cause my stomach is so full from dinner.

7:30 pm. Donny shows up. He found our note and hitched a ride to the hotel. We saw him outside in the parking lot (Donny). He got some dinner and a shower and joined us for some beers also.

It rained lightly at 8:20 pm-even better reason to not be on the trail-we had some great weather for our walk.

We ventured from Amicalola Falls to Dicks Creek Gap in 7 days of walking.

Tomorrow-Post Office, buy a Georgia Lottery ticket-$150 million at stake and watch TV while waiting for our ride later that night.

1:09 am. Goodnight from a warm, soft bed with Monday Night Nitro (Wrestling) on TV! Can't believe that Hulk Hogan is now a good guy again!

*No blisters of any sort-sore hips are gone-only problem is my left Achilles tendon. It hurts and noticed today that it is swollen pretty large-so much that I can't see the tendon behind my ankle. Everyone has some sort of ailment: Mike has sore ankles; Donny has sore knees; Skye has sore knees also and Todd seems to have the beginnings of his big toe nail falling off-his boot rubs the top of his toe.

Goodnight

Miles today: 8.8 miles

Overall Total: 74.5 miles