TRAIL DAY 12
Thu, Mar 3, 2016 I took a zero at the Top of Georgia Hostel. It would be a good day. Breakfast was prepared and laid out in the large kitchen section of the great room in the lodge. I remember asking on arrival if I’d be able to take a bath and was told it would have to be in the lodge and to look for a time with few people around because the tub was in the only bathroom to use in that large room. I opted out. Another time.
The kitchen area, wide open to the rest of the spacious room was to the right as you entered. It was just a big square of counters, stove top, sink and service areas. Past the kitchen you turned right to go down the hall to the bathroom and off to the right at the end was a door on the right to the outfitter area where you could resupply many different hiker foods and any kind of stove fuel needed – alcohol by the oz., canisters individually priced with propane, butane, isopro (80/20 blend of isobutane and propane), whatever your stove required.
To the left just inside the lodge doors were three large picnic tables, clean and well maintained, perpendicular to a wall of windows. Tables and kitchen took up the front of the great room and the large, open back section had a fireplace, couches and comfortable chairs with some guitars lying around. To the right at the back was a computer for use by hikers. The feel was the closest to a large ski lodge we’d experience on the trail.
The place was owned and run by “Sir Packs A Lot,” who had done a thru-hike some years before and had been a ranger in The Smoky Mountains. He knew a lot about hiking, equipment, and requirements for The Smoky Mountain State Park and he lectured on these matters at ease in the evening. He told us that on a 1-10 scale of difficulty, Georgia was rated at 4 and we were heading into a 6 for North Carolina. Of course, the Mark Twain syndrome took over and created horror for the mind to chew on but we’d eventually face just more hiking. Oh, be still my racing heart, one step at a time, you’ll see it when you see it and you’ll do it when the time comes – you’ll just do it with whatever the terrain requires. So be still.
Sir Packs A Lot showed us how to get our permits for The Smokys online. We’d have a chance to do this farther on but I decided to get it done. We’d be at Fontana Dam near the start of the mountains soon enough. I think it cost $20 which I paid by debit card.
I’m sure I tended to Theo outside and had him inside with me for the rest of the day while I sat at one of the tables opposite the kitchen near a window and an outlet. I helped myself to coffee and set up my tablet to enter the murky waters of blogging. All my computing had been on a PC and office related. I was so adept at using the keyboard and managing files that other attorneys asked me to write a how-to manual which I did, knowing all the while that my methods were too involved for the average person to care learning. Virtually every key on my keyboard has four functions, the given key and three macros run in combination with other keys. I still impress my computer consultants as a fast keyboard guy who goes hours on end without touching the mouse.
My tablet was touch screen with a neat, light-weight, bluetooth keyboard, lacking function keys however, but I managed. With WiFi (availability always noted by AWOL), I could do banking online, pay bills, go to my office PC, check email synced to my tablet and go online to slog. I’m afraid that word best describes my early efforts to let the world know what I was doing.
I was thinking that this blogging was my first but it wasn’t. About 15 years ago, I attempted to establish an online presence with a little piece I called “Turning Point,” intending that it would be my inaugural effort to let out the creativity inside – and it had to do with deep snow so reminiscent of my childhood in New England. I just had to capture a beautiful moment out with my dog in a fresh snow which started late in the day and continued well into the night. Street lamps along the road and several in the park across the street lit up the flakes as they fell.
Exuberance laughter and glee could be heard from kids sledding on the hills in the park even at the late hour – they knew there would be no school tomorrow!
TURNING POINT
And snow fell upon the village. . .upon the darkened hills outside of town, upon the lighted streets and highways, the hidden alleys and the yards, the wood piles and the garbage cans. All was white and softened and muted and still. A heavenly blessing under a full and entertaining moon. . . .
A dog barked at distant sledders kicking up wonder-wisps of white in the golden light–a flutter of countless pinpoints of silver returning to the quiet. . .ever so softly and slowly. How joyous his bark–even forgivable to those in bed who heard him in the night. And the moon looked on and winked. So approving was she of the chastening cold and the rushing blood and the spirit of the flutter, the bark and the wagging tail. It was so good that snow fell upon the village.