Ashes on the AT: Standing Bear Farm

Getting out of bed was the hardest thing. All of my body said NOPE. Everything is so incredibly sore from yesterday. I had to stretch a bunch before getting up. I was sound asleep for most of the night and i was in bed for almost 10 hours and I would have just kept laying there if I could! It must have been one of the most comfortable nights I've had so far on the trail. I wasn't warm or cold, it was just right and everything was just so comfortable. I'm sure being so sore that most anything would be comfortable though.

I managed to get going at 8AM. It just started raining again. It ended up raining on and off all morning. It was rough going at first but as I walked I warmed up my muscles and it got better. It was all a heavy fog until the afternoon too. The trail just shot straight down. Maybe 8 miles of downhill today. I lost about X,000 feet of elevation today. My ears would occasionally pop.

The scenery changed so much as I decended all of the coniferous trees went away and all of the lower elevation trees now have leaves. There's green leaves everywhere and so many new wildflowers. There's a lot of interesting insects and crazy colored milipedes, at least I think that's what they are.

I exited the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. It was a great feeling to finally be out of there. I followed this river for quite a ways and it turned into a waterfall that just kept on falling down new levels. It was so beautiful. The sun came out and the rain stopped. I still had my phone safely packed away because who knows with this weather so I didn't get any pictures. As soon as I left the park there was a set of power lines and the sounds of a nearby highway. The trail went down to a road and followed it for quite awhile. It crossed over a large river with rapids. There was a group on a bus getting off to go white water rafting, just like I did back at the NOC. The road continued to go under the major highway then up a gravel road before going back into the woods. It's definitely interesting following the road as part of the trail. It mixed things up that's for sure.

I only hiked 10 miles today to Standing Bear Farm, a hostel along the trail. I was able to get one of the last few bunks left. There's a cabinet with clean sheet sets. The mattresses are pretty gross so I'm happy that there's sheets. They also had towels and showers! This place is just so interesting though. I did laundry. I've only seen people use a washing board in movies but that was the washing "machine" I guess that I'm actually the machine. It took awhile to get most of the dirt out. The water kept turning brown from my clothes. There's a little store building. Each person gets an envelope to write their name, bunk number, and anything that they take in the store including the price and you pay the morning that you leave, there's so much trust in the hikers here.

The back of my left knee down to the top of my calf started pealing in thin large sections. A couple of my smaller toenails are turning brownish. I think that I may loose those ones.

Today the hostel is celebrating "Earth Day", today is 4/20 and they normally have a celebration for it but someone invited the sheriff so it's now an earth day celebration which is probably for the best. They went all out. They had a live band, a full on pig roast where they burried it in the ground, and a giant array of other food that everyone and their dog brought over. Seriously though, it's like the whole town was invited over and there must have been like 20 dogs. There were dogs everywhere. It was fantastic! I got to eat tons of great food and relax. I even saw my first bear! It was tastey.

My first bear sighting

I heard a rumor that the bear was breaking into someone's car so they shot it. It was like a tougher chicken with a darker color and tasted pretty great. I keep joking that it's the first bear I've seen on the trail. I'm not wrong though. Dessert was fantastic too. I ate so much that I felt kinda sick afterward.