Gatlinburg Rest

Hey everyone,

Well today I am simply relaxing at the hotel here in Gatlinburg Tennessee. My parents, who were on a cruise and driving up from Florida, came and picked me up at Newfound Gap, which is about halfway through the Smoky Mountains.
If you check the date of my last post, you will see that my pace this past week has been pretty downright Slow. lol In the last six days I went about 40 miles. I'm going to account that to the excessive rainy condition,, and it really was raining and windy and crappy out,, but a couple of the days,, the Russell Field Shelter to Spence Field Shelter day was pretty bad. I went 3 miles that day,,, it was raining and windy and me and a fellow hiker "Jack Straw" went down to check out Spence and when we got there it was very nice and very dry and very "not in the rainstorm" so at 1 o'clock we both said "ehhh good enough for today".

I can demean my lack of milage now jokingly,, but in reality I am glad that I stopped that day... we kind of just hung out in the shelter all day until other hikers got there. We ever hung around specifically because we knew Cotton, Q-tip, Trinket and Hyway were going to catch up.
Thusly we hung out at Spence all day and listened to my eton crank-up radio dialed in to the Knoxville Classic Rock station. A great way to pass a rainy day if there ever were one.

Anyhow, I went 6 miles the next day and then 7 the next and then I went 10 miles yesterday morning before being picked up at Newfound Gap at noon before heading into Gatlinburg Tennessee. I must say Gatlinburg is like being dropped off on an entire different planet,, it was kind of like the touristy part of Niagra Falls or Atlantic City, with about 50 Pancake houses and thousands of people walking around downtown.
It's pretty crazy, but the hotel I'm at right now is pretty nice, and I'm on my own laptop in the hotel room so it's nice to have that, I went to holy Thursday mass yesterday with my parents and it was nice, even though the priest has a little un-typical sermon.. talking about "the kids these days with the Che Guevara shirts on" and he was critical of people coming to mass with sandals one looking like they just left the beach... haha I looked at my mom and she had on black sandals,, we though it was kind of silly. but this hotel has a Hot Tub and the Golden Coral buffet is "da bomb" as Randy would say (yes that is an Idol reference that I don't know why I added) Anyways it was pretty great to have unlimited food and then afterwards yesterday we got a Stuffed Crust Pizza and I ate all but two pieces,, and I went and got a Whopper Jr. and Two scoops of Cotton Candy Ice-Cream at a Baskin Robbins,, it was just too easy when Pizza Hut,, Burger King and the Baskin Robbins were literally right next to each other on the same stretch of road.



Anyway Clingmans Dome and the Smoky Mountains were/are amazing when the sky is clear,, as I mentioned previously it was rainy the first couple days so the views were not there,, but the Smokies really are gorgeous.

What else..... oh
the collective group of other hikers that I've been hiking along with, and maybe part of the reason that I've been un-motivated to hike dawn to dusk. Our self-appointed captain "Swift" ..I believe he came up with the plan to call us "Team GoDat" Meaning that we Go "Dat Far" and then we Stop. haha We're just hiking along,, enjoying ourselves,, not trying to kill off 20 mile days just yet.
One guy in team GoDat is actually named Slackamus Maximus.

I've been hiking along with them for the past week or so and I'm loving it,, no sense rushing at this point,, the long days will come later.


Well... I will be setting off tomorrow morning,, going ten miles tomorrow and then maybe 13 the next,, who knows after that.. I'll try to keep this updated a bit more regular,, I can usually get verizon service on my phone in the mountains and it does connect to the blogger website,, the only problem is that it freezes up all the time,, I just have a normal phone (no droid or blackberry type deal_) it's a waterproof Boulder by motorola but nothing with easy access internet. my cell is 814 758 8556 if anyone who happens to be reading this does not have it already.

I'm going to just go ahead and submit this blog post at the moment,, I'll be uploading a few pictures here and to facebook as well

so until Next time.....
Have a great week and enjoy
--Kashmir