It turned out to be the perfect day to take a zero! In town it rained all day, but it had stormed pretty badly up in the mountains. Mike and I met Pacecar and Guinness for an all you can eat breakfast. While we shoveled cinnamon rolls, bacon and coffee in our faces, Pacecar and Guinness told us they planned on going back on the trail shortly after breakfast. I tried to convince them to stay in town another night. One reason I thought they should stay, was that the weather was supposed to be pretty terrible for the rest of the day. Also, selfishly, they were my friends and I wanted to hike with them more. They were pretty determined to get back into the woods, and I could respect that.
After breakfast we headed to the Grand Junction Motel (I changed the name). The motel we stayed at the previous night was alright, but the Grand Prix was only 30 clams a night! We got what we paid for, and I was pretty satisfied. The rooms were dirty, but not filthy. The exterior could have passed for a prison, if not for the empty swimming pool full of construction debris. After settling into my luxurious new accommodations, I sauntered the quarter mile or so to the hiking store and bought some more water purification drops. The outfitter was high priced and touristy, but it was a nice store. In the afternoon, Mike, Seth and I took the local bus to a grocery store at the edge of town to stock up on some supplies for the next leg of the journey. We all had enough chow to get us through, but we didn’t want to pass up the chance to fine tune the old food bag. After returning from the store, I spent most of the day at the motel. I wrote in my journal and watched some television. I remember going outside for a cigarette and talking to a thru-hiker who had decided to go home and not finish the trail. There are a ton of reasons a thru-hiker may decide to go home. Injuries or a family emergency could happen at any time. But this fellow seemed bored and just didn’t want to hike anymore. Gatlinburg seemed to do something strange to many hikers brains. There were stories about guys who stayed in Gatlinburg for a long time. They just lived in the Grand Junction and drank crappy beer for weeks on end. It seemed so strange to me. Walking hundreds of miles over mountains with a heavy backpack is exhausting, but a hiker can’t just live in Gatlinburg. Just like a kid should not move to Chuck E. Cheese’s, no matter how much they think they would like it. Crippling depression and disease seemed to run wild in both places. So, after my cigarette, I went back inside and found that “Driving Miss Daisy” was on T.V., and that was the rest of my afternoon.
In the evening we gathered all the hikers we could find and went out to a brewery for Ponch’s birthday. It was good to have a beer and the wings were delicious. After eating, a bunch of the guys went out to do Irish car bombs. I decided I didn’t want to be that hung over when I resumed the hike the next day, so I refrained. After there was even some crazy talk of guys wanting to hitch hike to Knoxville and go to a strip club. Seth, Mike, Martin and I decided to stay at the restaurant. We got a table and I ordered a Makers Mark. As we sat down we noticed that we were just in time for some bar trivia. The Navigator, Plan B, and\ The Vegan were all super smart, and I was there to answer the questions involving fast food, beer or 80’s sitcoms. “Balki and Larry worked in an antique store in the first season of “Perfect Strangers”..Who was their boss?….Mr. Twinkacetti!” I don’t remember any of the actual questions, but I do remember that Martin got the final question correct. It was something about Nuclear Power in France. With our thrilling victory we claimed a $50 prize. I think the rest of the teams playing were local folks. I thought it was funny for a bunch of mangy hikers to stumble into town, win the top prize and then disappear back into the mist. The prize money covered most of our tab. It was a great night.
Smooth's Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike 