From the Journals: DAY 29

Coach

Moreland Gap Shelter - Watauga Lake Shelter: 16.7mi

Last night with the storm we were basically cramming ourselves against the back wall of the shelter in the 8-12 inches where rain wasn't hitting us and wrapped up in our emergency blankets like burritos in our attempt to stay dry. All in all we stayed relatively dry, since we only caught the tail end of the storm, but it was not a very restful night. Today, we hiked down to Kincora Hostel for a resupply. We did laundry, took a shower, and ordered a pizza. We ate the pizza in about 5 minutes with an order of garlic bread. Probably could have eaten another one.

Met Bob Peoples, who runs the hostel. He is basically the Chuck Norris of the AT. "Bob Peoples gives his boots blisters" and "When Bob Peoples stays at a shelter mice bring him food." The guy is awesome and he has done over 6,000 hours of work on the AT. His section of the AT is very well maintained and the work he does is very hard manual labor. Bob Peoples also told us that the last 30 miles of TN is known to thru-hikers as the TN Turnpike, because hikers usually increase their pace by 1/2 mph. Really looking forward to it. Last few miles were a nice hike to the shelter. It appears that the Professor's mileage is decreasing before the pain really starts to affect him. Hopefully, the easy terrain will help him.

Professsor

Discovering that it is almost impossible to do many miles on resupply days. Gonna have to rethink that. Bob Peoples, the man, the myth, the legend. Over 6,000 hours of trail maintenance logged. He moves mountains with his mind. My feet hurt, we lost mileage on the resupply drop, had to go to our backup plan and stay at Watauga Lake. Tired.