This is day 3 at the Fontana resort village lodge. Not bad, I suppose, if this is how you want to spend your time: meet your hiker pals at the restaurant for $15 breakfast and talk about the weather conditions above 4000 ft, sit in the lobby and check email and all the weather sites you can find, hoping for different news, listening and watching the younger hikers to see who is staying and who is going , who thought they might go but changed their mind.
Last night, silver streak wanted to head out this morning...this morning he changed his mind due to the low temps & sustained wind speeds... Clever girl, Apollo, & dump truck just headed out...I hope they'll be ok.. Hermes decided to stay (he wears a hiking kilt and vibram 5 fingers) he had concerns of being cold as he already had on all his additional clothing...leggings)
Yesterday I spent my time sorting through my music files...which ones are stored "on device" vs. on the cloud, then taking advantage of the extended period of time with free wifi to download (lobby areas only...zero reception or data in the rooms..makes for lots of hanging out in the lobby)
We also sorted our food and packed up the bounce box to send ahead to hot springs, NC, a box of miscellaneous to send home :dry bag( that originally held extra clothing that I sent home last week, then I used it for my tent, but I'd rather stuff my tent into the dead spaces in my pack), a smoky mountain cookbook purchased here at the resort, a hand written letter(wow!), pony tail holders, fire starter magnesium block, my reading glasses with the LED lights, and zag contributed a bag of stuff...this allows us to recycle a box home for the next food drop, and to further lighten our load...
I also printed out the shipping labels for the 2 boxes using the 1 computer/ printer available for guests.
Today I've had breakfast, deleted email, played words with friends, updated blog, chatted with various hikers coming & going. My big outing today will be to Donn my pack and take the boxes down to the PO...
This afternoon Megan, an internet friend of zag's, picked us up, drove us down to Maryville to the outfitters, to the brewery for lunch, to Walmart, to her house, and back to the lodge. The drive included deals gap...home of 318 curves (therefore very popular with motorcyclists)..."tail of the dragon"..we were in a manual transmission Nissan versa...pretty good on the fun factor...not like on 2 wheels, though.
Zag bought a foam pad to go underneath "princess" (the given name to her 3Rd big Agnes q-core...)
I just drooled over the 50% off rack...so many nice things in my size...I did consider having some discounted apparel shipped home....but I abstained. A little trail magic at the outfitters: Bert introduced us to little Debbie pies in the cardboard box...maintains the integrity of the pie in transit, high calorie, box can be used as fire starter...
My only purchase today was at Walmart. Megan told us about some awesome scent killing laundry detergent that hunters use...so I got some and she will ship it to hot springs.
Of course, at the age of 40-something, I am not immune to standing-in-line-impulse-chocolate-purchasing whims....one peanut butter Snickers and one herseys milk chocolate with almonds...
We had lunch at the smokies brewery..cheeseburger, mashed potatoes and beer.
Pics: mountain view with and without snow; owl, zag, Megan; on the way to Maryville, community of Tallassee ,on the side of chilhowee mountain...unlike my hometown, the accent is on the 2ND syllable,
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