Tennessee and ONLY Tennessee

So the trail does this funky thing where it just fools you into thinking you are across the TN/NC state line, but then you cross a highway that says welcome to TN and then you go back into NC for half of a day and you're not sure what state you are even in when you sleep. Even so, it looks like we're still planning on being in Damascus, VA on the 24th of June. The last couple nights have been a little rough with the weather. Every time we check in the radio in the morning or hit up a town we have been getting tornado and thunderstorm warnings (which I guess explains why we were sleeping in temporary ponds a few nights ago outside a shelter).

However, last night we w're determined to be comfortable after our week of wet so we wrapped our tarps around the entrance to the shelter and built a fire inside our fort. We had about 6 lines of clothing going with our friends from New Jersey and we stayed dry and warm the whole night despite some really nasty weather outside; double rations of food helped alot (thank you so much Alden, Jimmy, and Emily for the care package it was a huge hit with our trailmates too. I think our only fualt outside of Hotsprings was shopping for food before going to the post office. We had about 6 days of food for 2.5 (heavy packs). Right now we're in Irwin, TN at the Holidayinn Express washing all of our clothes by hand (the machine is broken) and drying them using the AC in the room (which is making the room smell lovely). Eric, I will try and give you a date for when we will be near Harpers Ferry, West Vriginia which is the closest part of the trail to you (by Maryland), but it should be something around 25 days from when we hit Damascus assuming we average about 20 miles a day.

We're all very exicted for Vriginia for many reasons: Dunkin Donuts, some semblance of the north, and it is another state. We are also excited to see what the heck it looks like. It seems like we have heard just about every trait imaginable about the state of Vriginia as far as terrain goes ranging from "the hardest part" to "boring as hell" to "it's like a day hike man".

The next week or so should be fairly tough since we are going over our last 6,000 footer till Mt. Washington and it doesn't look too friendly (w'ere also 4 miles behind our original plan), but we are hoping the rest in the hotel tonight will do us some good when we set out.

Lastly, forgive my spelling. This is the latest I have been awake for non-mice/weather/lumpy ground/too wet/ some random old weekender with a mean snore realated reason. Tonight we're living it up with a six pack for the group, more food and reruns of "True Lies" with the Governator.

Oh yeah, in Hot Springs we weighed ourselves and compared to our starting weight: Sew lost 7 pounds, I lost about 5 and somehow Jeff gained two pounds (what?). So we're actually doing a lot better than we had expected in that arena. I think the 10 items on the value menu at Wendys today with the pizza will probably help stem that problem until the next town.

PS: To the Left of the posts is a link to our friend's blog and our trail photo's so far on the trail. Enjoy!