19th August 2007 [View Full Entry]

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Mice running races in the dark, someone besides her husband snoring, bugs, noises and hot flashes all keep CC from sleeping well on the trail. If we tent most of those things are not problems, however when we do the shelters all cause her grief! Last night was no exception. People started pulling out by 6:45AM. I was up and working on hot breakfast by then and CC was ‘as one’ with her sleeping bag. It was 8AM by the time we were the last to leave the shelter. It was hard to say what the day would bring weather [View Full Entry]

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Zero Day Events, Good Food and Rest. Got up early and CC stayed in bed to rest. Went out to breakfast with the other hikers and Johnny. He makes three runs a day to town - breakfast, lunch and supper. He will run you by the post office, the store or where ever else you might need to go. Erwin, TN is quite spread out and his hostel is on one far end. We stayed at the Waffle House until 9AM when the Post Office opened, then he drove by there on the way home. Our box was there waiting all [View Full Entry]

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I shouldn't wait so long to do these journals. Here I sit three days after the fact trying to remember what happened. When we got up CC recommended that we have a cold breakfast of granola bars and wait until we make the next shelter for our oatmeal. This would give me drinking water climbing "Little Bald" as the morning was warm. The next shelter with water was about 3.5 miles away taking us around one and a half hours. We chugged up the mountain and arrived on schedule about 9:45AM. We found the water without any problems (we had [View Full Entry]

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Rain and thunder continued throughout the night into early morning. Fog shrouded the mountain like cloth draped over furniture in an old mansion. Water dripped from the end of the leaves creating small puddles under their branches. Wind swirled mist and the fresh smelling clean air through the open door of the shelter as morning broke and we climbed out of our bags for chow. Earl had slept on the second floor and I had heard him stirring about 30 minutes before I got up. Not sure what he had for breakfast, but I did not hear any stove. He [View Full Entry]

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Longest Day of the Year/First Day of Summer, Greatest Lunch Spot Yet, New Distance Record, Uncle Johnny's Hostel. A quiet night in the nylon house. There was one nocturnal visitor that CC heard breaking a twig or two. I don't remember hearing anything, but I did smell a visitor I believe was a bear. I have not told CC about what I think as she would not sleep for the next week. Morning brought a warm orange glow to the inside of the tent as the sun climbed higher in the sky. Breakfast was pleasant and not rushed, packs were loaded [View Full Entry]

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Zero Day Cleaning up, picking up our mail box and eating real food. Will cover more of this later. Need to get to bed like I said before. We had a great day off and are well rested. We stepped on a scale today, OD has dropped 48 lbs, CC 20 lbs :-) Patrick, Deborah Mooney aka OD & CC All Who Wander Are Not Lost [View Full Entry]

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What a day! Started out early with overcast skies walking out of Doll Flats at 7:50AM. We had a 1,037' climb right out of camp to top Hump Mtn @ 5,587'. Started out in an old pasture gone fallow, no rain last night so our boots stayed dry. The clouds looked threatening but no rain or thunder. Old hardwoods were lining the edge of the field like soldiers on watch - tall, straight and strong looking. The majority of the mountain could be seen just before entering the forest. The direction the trail took it seemed we would slowly ascend [View Full Entry]

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First full day in TN. with a 30% chance of rain. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled through most of the night, quitting about 3AM. Morning was cool and damp with gray skies. We pulled out of camp about 8AM with an 11 or so mile day planned. We ran into a slew of NoBos all headed for Damascus. They warned of few water sources to the south. We made good time to Double Springs Shelter. Abingdon Gap was at 3,785', and after dropping into McQueen's Gap (3,653') it was a reasonable climb up to McQueen's Knob 3,840'. We crossed US421 in [View Full Entry]

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Wet, Wet and more Wet. Rained off and on all night. Tent, occupants and equipment therein all were dry. A late start to the day trying to keep all the wet stuff away from the dry stuff. Then after getting rolling we needed to stop .3 mile from the shelter for our daily water top off. We had been told the next 13 miles were dry, so I ensured we would have no problems today. Only a few NoBos this morning and most were in a hurry. We were also in a bit of a hurry as the weather was unsettled. [View Full Entry]

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