Day 8

Weather:
Sunny and warn. No rain.

Today's Hike:
Sassafras Gap to Dicks Creek Gap - 6.2 miles

Cindi has had a blister forming on her pinkie toe over the last few days. She's been wrapping it and using moleskin but to no avail it seems to be getting worse instead of better. She suggested going into Hiawassee to get off her feet, and I agreed. So we got packed and ready, and headed toward Dicks Creek Gap in hopes of making it into town.

The morning began with a hike over Kelly Knob, a climb of 972 ft. within a mile. I had a good breakfast so it wasn't to bad. The wind was insane though - it was like hiking through a wind tunnel. The rest of the hike was moderate with the last 1.6 miles going straight down hill. I hate hiking down hill, well, at least my knees hate hiking downhill.

We reached Dicks Creek Gap by 1pm, and Joyce, an AT shuttle driver was magically there (trail angel number 2). Thank goodness cause there was no cell service at the Gap and we would have never made the 11 mile hike into town.

We're staying at the Hiawassee Inn which is very hiker friendly. Ron and Sam run the Inn and have been working their tails off to accommodate all the hikers that flooded in this morning (there were 9 of us). They even went so far as to give us clean clothes and do our laundry for us. Tomorrow they'll have breakfast cooked and they provide a shuttle back to the trail.

As soon as we got to the room I went and got food; a foot long veggie sub and chocolate chip cookies from Subway. Yummy! For dinner, there was a shuttle for everyone to Daniels, an all you can eat (AYCE) buffet. It was OK but nothing to rave about. That may be partially do to the fact that its still hard for me to eat. I think (hope) that that will change as I continue on, and I'm sure I'll reach a point that any place in town that serves 'real' food, especially somewhere that is AYCE will be like heaven.

We are spending our evening in a nice warm bed watching our favorite TV show, the Closer.