Appalachian Trail (day 7) - Licklog Gap to Nantahala Outdoor Centre / mile 137

A resupply/recharge/maintenance day.

I've decided to have a shorter day of walking today and stay at Nantahala Outdoor Centre. I needed to have a shower, wash my clothes, recharge the batteries and resupply for few days ahead, as there were not many good places to buy food until after the Great Smoky Mountains.

After just an hour of walking I stumbled upon a trail magic run by three guys, one of which hiked the trail two years ago, his trail name was "Holy Shit". They had a fire going and cooked me some scrambled eggs with onion and bacon and a boudin a traditional Cajun sausage made of pork and rice. I got few paracetamol tablets from them as well to help me with a slight knee pain. We had a nice conversation, they told me that they been here for a week and been serving about forty hikers per day, today was their last day. They gave me few more snacks for the way, I've taken their picture and carried on.

The weather was a mixed bag, and it was even snowing for a short period of time but eventually it cleared and the sun came out. The descent to the valley where NOC was located was a beautiful and fairly exposed ridge walk, one of the most scenic stretches of the trail so far.

I've arrived at the hostel at 2:30 pm and managed to book the last remaining bunk bed. Bookie the owner of the other accomodation called Rumbling Roots Hostel I wanted to stay at, did not reply to my email (it was her old one) but I met her while she was picking up her guests and she promised to give me a ride later on to resupply at the Dollar General.

I took a shower, cleaned my clothes and washed the tent which was covered in mud from few previous nights. Bookie texted me that she will be able to pick me up at about 6:30 pm and so she did.

She turned out to be super friendly 45 year old ex-primary school teacher, who hiked the trail few years ago and decided to end her career, buy a house next to the trail, run a hostel and be a rafting instructor during hiking off season. She enjoyed my company enough to offer me a free accomodation for the night (as one of the reservations got canceled) but it would mean that I would have to go back to the other hostel, pack up etc. which would waste a lot of valuable time, so I had to refuse the offer (which to be honest I regret now).

Her place was so much more homely with a living room, kitchen, two cats and two dogs, a fishtank and a wide comfortable beds. Compared to a small, tatty room with four bunk beds, dirty walls and few plug sockets for pretty much the same price. To top it up, I even found someone's old fingernail on my mattress.

I stayed at her hostel for an hour, had a root beer and helped her cooking some steaks for the guests, then she gave me a lift back to the NOC hostel and didn't charge me for anything. She definitely changed this otherwise bland day in town into a memorable experience. 

After my return I quickly packed the food into the backpack and decided to sort it out tomorrow as it was way pass the "hikers midnight" aka 8 pm, I've put my phone on charge, had a brief conversation with the other guys in the room but since they were all stoned, it didn't go particularly well. Then I  went to bed.