Hey guys!

I'm still in Hot Springs, North Carolina because I was anticipating some terrible weather last night and am still anticipating it for today. It wound up not raining last night, even with a 30% chance but today we are expecting thunderstorms (60% chance). However, if you look outside, it is very sunny and doesn't seem like it will rain. I'm torn between going out and hiking today or staying for another zero or near-o (nearly zero mile day). The next shelter is ten miles away but it sadly only sleeps five people, the next one after that is another 10 miles and it sleeps only five again. I prefer shelters when it rains because a wet tent is a real pain in the ass to have to deal with. Meh, i'm not sure what I'll do yet.

Last night was tedious-- I had set up down by the river to have a spot for free camping but it turns out there was so much poison ivy that I couldn't set up my tent taut enough less I wanted to risk my hands getting the itch-- on top of that, I had to get my tent JUST right to avoid the roots that were sticking up (I really don't want to get a hole in my tent). After struggling and getting it nearly decent, I heard from Fozzie, Sam and Phil that we would be stealth camping instead, so I ran the .25 miles down to my spot, got all of my shit together and on the way back up found Sam and Phil were going to try to hammock down by the river. I just wound up following fozzie and we decided to sleep in our tents by the river on the side where you'd have to pay for camping. The catch was, we wouldn't pay unless they asked us to. The night, oddly enough, went off without a hitch. Nobody stopped and asked us what we were doing and nobody said a word to us. I spent most of the last of the daylight reading The Three Musketeers-- a book I grabbed from Standing Bear hostel and I'm engrossed in the story again. The romance, the fights, it makes me want to read more and more. I went to bed sometime around 10, woke back up and started reading again-- I'm at about chapter 12 when the story commences the engrossing nature of most of Dumas' best works. Fozzie woke up and asked if I wanted to go get coffee with him so we commenced to pack up and go to the diner. I put my shoes on and walked for a while then felt something inside my left shoe crawling about on me (I had shaken them out, mind you, to make sure nothing was dwelling in there) and I found a huge, round green caterpillar had tried to take up residence in my vibrams. I shook it out and was thoroughly disgusted. Oh, what a sign of the bugs to come!

The diner food was no better for breakfast than it was yesterday. The pancakes tasted like shit and I paid $1.27 for two pieces of bacon that were gone within half a minute. I didn't tip, I wish I hadn't paid money, I should have just waited for the dollar general to open so that I could eat more tortilla chips ($2 a bag).

Sat outside the library and called my mom to talk for a while until the library opened at 10 and here I am. No sign of Sam and Phil at the moment, we'll see if I catch back up with them again soon!

I found some photos online of some of the neat spots we've slept the last few weeks but they don't do justice to the magnificence of them. In the smokies, you are only supposed to sleep in shelters but Phil, Fozzie and I wound up sleeping in some spots that were secluded and nobody wound up bothering us. Above all, they were badass spots to sleep. The first interesting spot is the highest on the entire trail-- Clingman's dome. The elevation is nearly at 7,000 feet and the vegetation is entirely different than anything I've seen on the east coast. The trees are largely spruces and the oldest ones are all bare and dead, like bones stuck in the earth and sitting as silent as gravestones-- the odd, eerie feeling they produce elevates the knowledge that you are quite high up in the mountains. We slept up in the tower of clingman's dome, a night that should have and would have been really fun aside from me getting a piece of dust in my eye and me spending the better half of the night trying to get a tear to form in 40mph winds so that I could get the sodding piece of nothing out. Oh yes, and it was QUITE cold. The next day my eye was quite swollen and everyone figured I just looked sleepy. We also had a few kids that came up to the tower at about midnight, they realized we were sleeping and they thankfully left us alone. The way down from clingman's dome getting to Gattlinburg is surreal in it's beauty-- you feel as though you're walking in a heaven of pine groves.

Second spot we slept was one of the old fire towers that was built in the 30's and has stayed supported, although getting into the tower, the floorboards were in want of reinforcement as they sunk a little at the entrance. It was a fire tower like the one I read about in a Jack Keroac book-- full of history but empty and holding a view that few could surpass. The night was spent with mice scurrying about and with them being so audible, it was eerie. I met Mary Poppins as he was going on for his 30 miler that day and the lights from the towns below held quite a bit of splendor. The next morning, the fog covered everything-- the fog here is not predictable but it can certainly be beautiful. My sentiments on walking in fog for a few hours and then coming to a stunning, sunny view are difficult to explain but it feels refreshing, especially if you start our day hiking at 7am and are just getting tired out-- then, the rays of the sun and a glimpse of blue skies can all but morph your fatigue into a feeling of valor and confidence. I get music in my head all of the time... beautiful triumphant things, other times I am just silent within but smiling without.

It was technically illegal to sleep in these spots but it was all the more fun. I prefer a quiet spot to the shelters in the smokies which were commonly full by 3pm.

Hope you are all in beautiful times! take care!