roaring fork shelter to hot springs, nc

slept pretty well despite sheltering. today was an easy handful of miles into hot springs, nc. the walk in was a very long descent out of the mountains. i had expected to be able to chat with magz on my way in, but hot springs has no at&t cell service. interesting.

i passed a random gnome homestead not too far from town.

i arrived pretty early at the laughing heart hostel. it was about 20’ from the trail just as it exited the woods. i checked in, unpacked, took a shower, and started a load of laundry. the house rules were that food in the fridge was up for grabs if it didn’t have a name on it. lucky me, i found the remnants of a case of budweiser with 2 beers left and no name in sight. i gave the second to bugs, who was on the way to the shower, and was happy to have a shower beer.

quick, rocket, papa roja, bugs and i then went to spring creek tavern for lunch. across the street was the outfitter, and quick scored some xero sandals for camp shoes. they of course didn’t sell my size. we got some ice cream before heading back up the hill to the hostel.

back up at the hostel, i was able to use their wifi to signal call magz while i sat on the lawn in the sun. i spent the rest of the afternoon trying to catch up on the blog.

we went to the brewery for dinner, where they had a permanent taco truck. there was some live music, but everything packed up pretty quickly as a thunderstorm approached. we hiked back up the hill in the dark, a back way some locals told us about, and arrived at the hostel before the rain started.

bugs and quick wanted to watch a movie, amd after numerous horror suggestions were rejected, we settled on “mr. and mrs. smith” only to discover that the DVD player wouldn’t open. someone then discovered a netflix account logged into the tv, and we settled on “sherlock”.

few additional images from today: