Wonder

Day 5

We woke up at 7:30 and left the comfort of the hostel to eat our breakfast outside and threw away the trash in the garbage can. As soon as we started hiking it began to sprinkle. We donned our ponchos and ventured forth. It rained softly throughout our hike and was really foggy which made for some beautiful scenes. Looking to the left or right we could see different shades of trees as they disappeared into the fog. It was also windy so we didn't stop for lunch until we reached Low Gap Shelter where we stayed for the night. There were a lot of hikers at the shelter including a group of humorous young people we hung out with.

Miles hiked today: 11.5 Total AT miles: 43.2 AT miles left to hike: 2142.1

Day 6

The first long stretch of our hike was very easy walking across the side of a long mountain. I threw on the Avett Brother's album I and Love and You. Before too long my eyes filled with tears at the beauty of the music and the lyrics. I can't remember the last time I cried. As I listened I realized that I have not been overwhelmed by the beauty of the mountains here. In fact, I haven't really been in awe of anything in a long while. My sense of wonder is gone. I have understood this in regards to my senses. It is difficult to be wowed by food, art, movies, even the beauty of another person. We are overexposed to the bodies of celebrities, we are given too much access to a variety of cheap food, we have too many TV shows and movies that contain too much excitement and plot twists in order to hold our attention away from the others. It is difficult for us to truly appreciate anything when we have so much of it. But I think I have lost something deeper than a loss of sensuous wonder. It is some natural part of the spirit or the soul that is out of whack. So what can I do to regain a sense of wonder? Deprive myself of comforts and pleasures? Truly enjoying a frozen pizza after three days of hiking is one thing, but truly appreciating the simple love of my wife is something different. How can I actually feel the presence of God? How can I be overwhelmed by beauty or love or grace? Perhaps I can discover some answers on this journey. We had planned to hike twelve miles this day and set up camp on tpp of Rocky Mountain, but someone told us it was supposed to be very cold so we decided to hike more to the next shelter. We're sure glad we did because right after the mountain an older Georgian couple had set up trail magic at Indian Grave Gap. We had chicken burgers, hamburgers, bottled root beer, gatorade, spinach salad, strawberries, and bananas. Afyer we had our fill and thanked them we continued on up Tray Mountain which was extremely difficult, feeling sick from all the food. Once at the Tray Mountain Shelter we set up our tent and found our bottle of denatured alcohol had cracked and started leaking. Not too much got wet from it, but I should have known better than to store it in a cheap Walmart water bottle with thin plastic. Luckily, Christine grabbed a small bottle of Gatorade from the trail magic so we transferred it over. I will also keep it in a side pocket from now on. We went to sleep soon after dealing with the mess, fully bundled in all of our baselayers and jackets and sleeping quilt.

Miles hiked today: 15.4 Total AT miles: 58.6 AT miles left to hike: 2126.7

Day 7

We woke up to snow covering the entire mountainside. We were slower in leaving our warm tent than normal, but still managed to leave before anyone else. The trail kept maneuvering from the cold, snow-covered side of the mountain to the warm spring-looking side. But soon clouds blocked the sun and a strong wind prevailed so it was just cold all over. We planned to stay at Deep Gap Shelter, but decided to push a couple more miles to the Blueberry Patch Hostel instead of braving what was supposed to be a very cold night. So we walked to Dick's Creek Gap and headed west down US 76 toward Hiawassee. We walked about a mile before a real estate agent pulled over to drive us the couple more miles to the hostel. This hostel is really just a two-room building in an older couple's backyard. One room is full of wooden bunks hand-crafted by the hostel owner himself. The mattresses are comfortable and they provide pillows with clean pillowcases. One bunk is big enough for couples to sleep together. The other room is a little kitchen with a picnic table and a large wood stove. The owners do your laundry for you and provide clean clothes to wear in the meantime, provide snacks and cookwear, let you refill your Coleman fuel or denatured alcohol, and have another small building for the toilet and shower fully decked out with all the amenities you could need. To top it all off they make you a big breakfast in the morning and drive you back to the Trail. And they do all of this for you for free. They are Christians and really very truly kind and thougful. Gary comes in about once an hour to throw more logs in the stove and ask us if we need anything. We were going to go to town to buy some groceries, but we managed to find enough food to last us in the hiker box. We felt very blessed to be here and since there were only three other thruhikers here, we got to talk more with them, feeling more comfortable in small groups. We had a good night rest and are now waiting for breakfast.

Miles hiked today: 11 Total AT miles: 69.6 AT miles left to hike: 2115.7