Well, I got to spend the night at home with my husband last night :-) He met me at a road crossing near Hiawassee, GA and brought me home, cooked me a lovely steak dinner, did my laundry, showed me around his new digs (very pretty State Park campground on a lake), took me to Wal-Mart (I keep needing "stuff.") Hard to go back to the Trail this morning after the nice warm bed w/ him in it :-)
67 miles down, 2016 to go. Eighty-one marathons left of the 83.3. Four pounds down. I better eat more fat. Most days I get to my destination 1-2 hours ahead of my estimate. Tendons are fine, ache a little sometimes but no real trouble. I bought full-length Spenco arch-support orthotics and pitched my prescription ones and my feet feel so much better. I hated those orthotics. They were stupid. I have a toe blister that's bothersome; I'm taking care of it. I got new boots at Neels Gap and love them to death, way better than my worn-out trail runners. Pair of microfiber dress tights I picked up for $6 in New Orleans have held up so far w/o a single hole. They're my lightweight bottom layer and I've worn them every day.
Night before last it was 21*F at Tray Mountain Shelter where I stayed, blowing snow into the shelter, wind sounded like Niagara Falls. I was with about 10 guys, no other girls!! Three of us pitched tents inside the shelter, 4 more slept in between the tents (actually very efficient use of both shelter and tents, everyone got the benefit of both) and the other die-hards camped, one in a hammock w/ tarp over it. My 20* down bag kept me nice and warm.
I have a new Trail Name:Yard Sale. My stuff gets disorganized inside my tent, and in the morning I lay it all out on my ground cloth to make sure I can find everything and get it reorganized. They say it looks like I'm having a yard sale; before I get it laid out it looks like when a skier wipes out and his gear flies everywhere and they call it a yard sale. Reminds me again of that phrase I want on my gravestone...."Did I Miss Anything?"Speaking of missing, I'm missing about a 13-mile section already. Getting a ride into town (Helen, GA) and back to the trail didn't work out to the same stop-start place. It could have but I wanted to stay with my friends. Ironically, we all started in different groups with different rides (most had stayed overnighit in Helen due to weather forecast), moved at different paces,and I'm not with them currently anyway. I'll catch up today, waiting for a parcel at the post office. I will no doubt go back and do that section within the year. But I'm wondering if part of the purpose of this trip is to teach me not to be so compulsive about getting everything exactly right, going back, doing over, editing, re-editing..... but you can't call it an authenticthru-hike if you miss a section and don't make it up.
Characters on the Trail:Me (MacGyver aka Yard Sale), N-Da-Wind, hardcore biker-chick construction worker. Patience, a deaf fellow, Impatience, his service dog, Muscles, who has become his girlfriend, to all appearances, Ten-Sticks Arriba (that's my starting partner Sally, "The Fastest Mouse in the World-- she BOOKS, which is why we're not together at the moment, I'm not as trained as she is and I'm still coming back from injury), Fleet and Gaia, both women, traveling together, Wishbone, Bluegrass.
Today or tomorrow I should move into NC, depending on when the mail is available at the P.O.
Well, it was supposed to be a quickie... :-)Ellie/MacGyver aka Yard Sale

(Steve), the new tent came in the mail, so Ellie unpacked everything next to the post office and repacked with the new tent.
I dropped her off at the trail and she headed north. I talked to her on the phone and she had caught up with Sally, etal and had made the NC bourder.