100+ Miles

Today we officially hit the 100 mile mark on the AT at the top of Albert Mountain in all 5,200 ft of its glory. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that, as of today, I am 1/10th of the way to Harpers Ferry and the halfway point of the trail. My feet ache, my toes are throbbing, my knees need more than a little support am I'm out of Advil but we are back in a town and I am thoroughly enjoying every overheated moment in this dinky hotel room.

As if making it to 100 wasn't enough, we opted to add on an additional 10 miles, masochists that we are, to make today our first 16+ mile day.

The day got off to a fun start with a fury visitor, somewhat lovingly named Buttons, burrowing his way into one of turtles mittens inside her pack at dawn. He would have been cute if he was at a safe distance and not running through our sleeping bags as I, predictably, screamed and bolted for high ground. At least we were awake.

The trek was relatively smooth and was loaded with trail magic including something called a "green energy snow cone" which is basically a snowball topped with something that tastes like Monster energy drink. Everyone was partaking so we did (I figured all p the carcinogens in the concentrated energy drink liquid would kill any bacteria in the snow). My heart raced for about 15 minutes but man did we truck it up that second climb.

The second bit of magic came at about 3.8 miles to go. A gentleman named Happy Jack was waiting at Wallace Gap with Budweiser, apples, bananas and chips. Fun trick? Two Advil and a beer will cure all foot pain at least until you get to your destination and find a ride into town.

AYCE pizza helps too. The Factory is a place in Franklin, NC that has two restaurants (both AYCE), mini golf, bowling and hundreds of arcade games. It looks a bit like the land of the blob people from Wall-E inside with remarkably overweight patrons bouncing from video games where you sit and kind of sway back and forth to simulate a roller coaster (the DDR was not surprisingly unoccupied and gathering dust) to the AYCE pizza place where $6.00 gets you all the pizza and salad your body can handle. For a bunch of hikers burning upwards of 5,000 calories a day this is heaven. It doesn't seem to be doing much for the average citizen though.

I feel a bit of a cold coming on so we will reevaluate in the morning if we want to zero here or not. It is so good to be warm.