The Giving AT Community :Day 31

There’s something different about waking up on town days. There’s a little more pep in your step mostly because of the fact you get to take a shower. We had a 13 mile day to make it to Uncle Johnny’s Hostel in Erwin, TN. We initially planned to nero, but a phone call to the hostel had us change our minds. “Hi! Is this Uncle Johnny’s?” I asked. “Sure is” they responded. “Cool! I was wondering what your rates are for four thru hikers for the night.” I said. “Well actually, a fellow thru hiker paid for people to stay for free so it wouldn’t cost you anything.” He said. Danny and Kyle’s eyes lit up immediately. Feverish gestures and mouthing of words were flung in my general direction as I listened to the man. “So how much would it be if we stayed two nights?” I asked. “Well I think it would be about $15 a person” he said. This was the most beautiful thing I could have ever heard. We set off with even more pep in our step. Even though we had the zero ahead of us, we still had a rough 13 miles to go. We met two other thru hikers today. Swat and a man who didn’t have a trail name. They were also headed to Erwin and soon passed us. Their packs looked much lighter than ours did and their pace was proof of it. We soon lost them with not much hope of seeing them again. After, many many miles, we finally hit our last climb of the day. We sat at the bottom for a very long time before ascending our last hill. I was dreading this last climb because all I wanted was to lay in a bed. After about 30 minutes, we reluctantly put our packs on and walked up the hill that was actually a wonderful little hill that was the perfect incline. When we got to the top, we had a beautiful view of the roaring nolichucky river below us. 2 more miles. When we got to the bottom we immediately went into the cleaning frenzy of laundry and showers. After that, pizza was the main agenda. And pizza we had.