Hiawassee Inn Uniforms
It rained through the night; but, when we got up it was quiet. Still, everything was wet and damp and nasty. My soaking-wet underwear was bouncing in the wind on the makeshift clothesline I found on the side of the shelter where I had hung them last night in hopes that the wind might dry them out a little bit. No deal. I don’t care about the wetness except that wet things weigh a lot more and if you don’t dry things right away, everything will be wet before long and that’s a lot of weight difference.
I had some good sleep for a change; but, a town was sounding really good to us right about now. It’s only day 6 and we are in dire need of some civilization. We consulted our handbook for a local phone number, got cell phone service and arranged a ride to meet us at the road. It was only about an hour’s hike away. When we got to the road, Sally showed up in a sky blue, 1970 Volkswagen Bus that was completely restored. She called it “The Fliver." It transported our wet, muddy crew into the town of Hiawassee. On the way we sang songs and watched the miles fly by. She told us about blueberry trees and took us all the way to the other side of town where we grabbed some Mickey D's and Rolex ran across the street to get a new cell phone charger at a Radio Shack.
I tried to dry my boots off in the Mickey D’s Bathroom using one of the hand dryer things. A double quarter pounder with Cheese never tasted so good to me. She recommended that we stay at the Hiawassee Inn, an inexpensive motel in the middle of town. It sounded good to us so we went and soon Sam greeted us in a gruffly warm manner while spitting out the well-rehearsed list of services they offered to hikers. It was amazing; we were in heaven! They did our laundry including sleeping bags, and then they gave us sweats to wear so we could go over to the pharmacy and stare at all the pretty colors in the Hallmark Aisle. We looked like three Heaven’s Gaters getting ready to take their last sip of Kool-Aid. After spending hours in a the neighboring Rite Aid and somehow getting through our first real resupply without buying everything in the store, we got a little rest, fresh clothes and met a bunch of other thru-hikers that were staying in the Inn.
Sam lent us the van and Cyclone drove all of us over to Daniel's Steakhouse which had an all-you-can-eat buffet. I opted out and got the "Best of Both Worlds" T-Bone. We met even more hikers from previous shelters and they all joined our table. It was like a little reunion there. It seems everyone was waxed after that rain and needed the comforts of the town. We ate dinner with Lil' Cubit and Mad Mt Mike and even Dances showed up! After eating, we found out that the Dairy Queen is the only place that had Internet so we got some Scrumpdillyishious and Googled, uploaded and blogged. It turns out I deleted all of the track data from the past couple of days from my GPS and irretrievably lost it all. You can probably imagine how I reacted. We went through some of the toughest days of my life thus far and I lost the $!%&*$$ track data! DAMN!! The town folk of Hiawassee knew all about it shortly after I did. We walked back over to the hotel. It was time for bed; all that angst wore me out.
David AKA "Jukebox"
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