Day 34: Grande Burrito

Hiked 15.6 miles, staying at Black Bear Resort.

We woke up this morning to a great surprise, blue skies!  The sun was out in full force which meant that instead of putting back on our wet clothes and hiking in the rain, we got to hike in the sun and dry out a little bit.  We had rolling hills all day today that ended in a solid net overall climb, before dropping right back down into an access road to Hampton Tennessee.  There was a lot of mud to slog through today after yesterday's rain and the streams were running strong.  Unlike yesterday though the streams were free of silt which had inundated them yesterday during the rain.  It is amazing how quick that clears up.

Filling up water at a stream, hello Why Not!

We stopped about 10 miles in for lunch on an overlook that looked out over the town of Roan Mountain, yep we've been circling this area for a while.  Aquaman caught up to us here and gave us words of wisdom for the day: it is better to be simple and deep than shallow and complex.  Ponder that.

Random bench in the middle of the trail

The view from the bench, now you see why it was there!

You software folks should enjoy this sign, does it mean the sign doesn't exist or Springer doesn't?

View from the overlook where we stopped for lunch, town of Roan Mountain bottom left

View from late in the day

There are three main access points to Hampton and we stopped at the  first one.  There is a place here that rents cabins to thru hikers and split four ways it is pretty cheap.  It gave us the opportunity to dry our stuff out and wash the mud from our clothes.  We ran into World Pease, CC Rider and Dreamer here and later at varying times POM, Timex,  Catnip and PS strolled in.  Apparently Big Boot had some foot issues, Field Stripper sprained an ankle and the third guy got Noravirus, so he is now walking solo and hoping to make it to Damascus by wednesday so he can get off the trail briefly to see his brother's college graduation.  Supposedly Banyon is also here but we have yet to see him.

Everyone enoying some time in the sun, Timex at far side of the table

Hampton is tiny and has no restaurants and minimal grocery.  It does have a store that doubles as a laundromat, pc repair shop, hardware store and burger stand, quite the random mix.  Given that, we decided to head over to Elizabethtown which is the next town over since POM and CC Rider both had cars.  There they had a mexican place...with a french name.  I had about the largest burrito I have ever seen, no lie, it was the size of my face.  Dip'n'sip and I also made the mistake of ordering the 'texas margarita' which it turns out has triple the tequila in it.  The frozen part of the margarita was literally floating.  Good times.

Now that is a burrito!

POM, me, World Pease, Timex, Srocket, CCRider, Dreamer, Dip'n'sip, Why Not

After stopping by the grocery we headed back.  The road from Hampton to the hostel is about the windiest mountain road I had ever been on, quite the rollercoaster.  Catnip and PS were watching Signs in the hiker common room when I got back so I joined them with a late night snack of Ben and Jerry's, yum!  We bought all the supplies to make breakfast sandwiches in the common room tomorrow  morning, should be awesome!

Black Bear Resort

Black Bear resort