Day 5: Sibling Love.

6:38 pm

Mile total: 69.6

Wowzers.

These past two days have been intense. Day 4 was a long one. Woke up from the shelter with this view…

Not a bad way to wake up, however it was short lasting.. we soon found out all our clothes hanging on a line were soaked…it had rained in the night when we thought it was all over.

So we had to put on wet clothes, socks, and shoes. And David wanted to start the day right away, so I didn’t get to eat breakfast first.

Grump butt I was.

We spent the first half of the morning hiking and not saying anything to each other.

The weather on Tuesday was absolutely delightful and the first 8 miles or so were flat flat flat. so my mood quickly changed. We ended up doing 22 miles and enjoyed each others company again later on in the day.

We made it all the way to Tray Mountain which had an incredible view. There is no picture that would do it justice.

We set up camp and woke around 530 this morning because the terrible thunderstorm and rain was around the corner again.

We started to get rained on around 9 and had about 6 more miles till we would reach our first town visit of Hiawassee, Georgia.
We could of waited for a shuttle or hitchhiked. David didn’t mind waiting… But I wanted to experience the joy of hitchhiking. So I stuck out my thumb and a man let us load into the back of his truck since we were nice and muddy.

He flew down the mountain road of 11 miles into town to a gas station. It was quite a joy. 😁There he let us off at a gas station where one of the clerks Sandra more than happily took us to our hotel so we didn’t have to walk any farther. Once checked in, we took short showers and went to find a ride to get food. The most important thing in town!

We ran across an old fellow with the trail name cotton who lives around here and he was such a sweetheart. he had supplies for us and advice. He kept saying to me “Okay now little sis” And made sure we had his number.

At the Mexican restaurant…we devoured food like it was no ones business… And enjoyed a nice ice cold beer.

While there, David left to go handle his business in the bathroom and there was a woman sitting across us by herself.

So I asked her where is a good breakfast joint around town and we got to talking about alot. Her name is Debbie and she absolutely made my day. My heart filled with joy that I had had the pleasure to meet such a loving, kind person. She even took us to our next location.

The people here are wonderful and extremely helpful to hikers… Its a really neat experience. 🙂

We restocked on food and are currently staying in a hotel. A much need for us.

My emotions have been on an emotional roller coaster. If I don’t sleep well, I wake up mad. Then while having to hike up.. I constantly think “Why can’t this trail stop going up?” and get angry. 😂Then when we go down the mountain I stay smiling again and enjoy it greatly. Then we go up and it feels like David is nipping at my heels so I get frustrated and tell him to pass me. Like how is he fast on mountains without trekking poles?

But then I remember that he is already starting to suffer from T rex syndrome because of it 😜 Small arms.. Huge legs.. And get to a point where I laugh alot at my own thoughts.

Then I get sad and tell him Ill meet him further down because this is just as much his trip as it is mine and I keep feeling like I am holding him back.

Then during the sad moments it feels like everything comes and I get teary eyed with the mere fact of missing the people I love and adore.

Then I reach a beautiful scenic view and am hit with a “This is why I am out here” feeling.

Then I reach camp site and devour food and my mood again increases.

It really is unreal.

The ups, the downs, all of it.

Like I said. This is not easy. Alot of the time you are uncomfortable and pushing yourself further than you think you could go straight from the start. (Its no wonder 20 percent of people drop out after Blood Mountain.)

And it is everything I wanted to go through. This is going to be a wild 5 months. 😊❤️
May the journey continue.

Iz and Oz