April 29, 2000 -- Day 29
Destination: Hot Springs, N.C.
Today's miles: 13.1
Trip miles: 270.5
A cold morning has turned into a beautiful, partly sunny and cool day. We've got a pattern emerging here, I'd say. Go into town: sunny. Hike: rain. It's funny how it's been that way almost the entire time. Ha ... ha.
I'm sitting on a log, 3.2 miles from Hot Springs, waiting for Marie and Joker to catch up. My Mountain Mama's malady is over and done with, and I've got my energy back and my appetite along with it. What I could really go for right now is a turkey club with extra bacon, and a big salad with hard-boiled egg and pasta in it.
I've got to find snacks I like for when I'm hiking along during the day and ready-to-eat foods for breakfast. Power Bars and instant, liquid meals just don't do it for me, and I really get tired of all the sugary stuff, like candy bars, Pop Tarts and even granola bars. I'm not much of a good-old raisins and peanuts girl, either. Really limiting myself, aren't I? I like those little pull-top cans of tuna. I get pita bread or bagels, and packets of mayo, and make sandwiches. That sort of grub is heavy in backpacking terms, but worth it to me. Dinners I have no problem with, because I actually do like Liptons. Knorr is another brand that's pretty good, and I like those instant rice things well enough. Heading out of Hot Springs, I'm going to carry some pasta and a hunk of cheese and make real mac-n-cheese. Can you tell I'm hungry right now? Hope Marie and Joker aren't far behind.
11 p.m.: I'm sitting at a picnic table in the campground with Marie and Joker. We're watching yet another freight train pass through, about thirty feet away. Tent site #234 has a front row seat, every hour on the hour, so it seems. A beautiful, starry night, and we have trains. They seem to blow the horn right here at campsite #234. You've just gotta laugh.
Anyhoo, it was neat hiking into Hot Springs. I could see farms, the river and the small downtown area as I descend the switchbacks. There was a drum group playing as I hiked in--Trail Fest is going on--and it was fun bouncing down the mountain to the bongo beat.
When we arrived in town, after all the food-fantasizing we'd done at our rest stop three miles before, we ended up eating pseudo-Thai from a festival stand. A few hours later, after setting up our tents, showering and stopping at the Laundromat, we found ourselves in a restaurant. We ordered a bunch of food and then sat there laughing hysterically, because we weren't hungry! Maybe you had to have been there to find that even slightly amusing, but it's like we were robots automatically going to feed ourselves just because we were in town. We ate some anyway and got a large doggy bag. Brandon is in town, so maybe he'll eat the leftovers. We saw him earlier, collecting aluminum cans to turn in for the deposit money, I guess. (Do they do that in North Carolina?) Marie bought Brandon an ice cream bar when we ran into him at the campground store.
Well, it's time to get some sleep in before the next train passes through the campground. I'm inside my Clip Flashlite tent now. It's like a new home. Well, it is a new home, actually. Okay, g'night.
--Ramkitten
