Anne and Davy in North Carolina: Not AT&T but the AT :-)

Hello again !

Where have we been for the last two days ?

You've got three guesses ( the two first ones don't count :) ).

Exactly!

We thought, if we're that near to the Smoky Mountains, why not do a part of the Appalatian trail, everybody talks about so much ? So that's what we did !

The plan was to get up early in the morning (very very early... or... too early for me :) ), drive up to the Smokies, park the car next to a Ranger station and meet Mark at 10am. He would drive us up to the starting point of our hike. Now why would we do that ? Well, we didn't want to do a loop hike where we'd have to hike the same trail there and back... :-)

Mark's a pretty funny guy who lives near the Smokies, has Lamas at home and is a volunteer in the Park. Meaning that he hikes all the trails and does maintenance work whilst hiking... his Lamas carrying the bags I presume :)

But hey, this all seems like we arrived in the mountains just like we planned!

Nope... not at all... :)

Didn't I tell you about the car that had to get jump started in Gaffney ? Well, the car, as much as myself, is not an early riser :-) So it died on us again... twice... :(

Medical analysis from us, two hobby mechanists who do not know too much about cars... : the battery's life expired, we need a new one. (I tell you this right away, because it makes me smile just thinking about it: WE WERE RIGHT! :) whatever... )

So we took the second car in the garage... Fortunately there was one... :)

The trail in itself was... let's say... tree-ish. I didn't find the right word, so I created my own :)

What I want to say is that it was leading us through the woods, different kinds of trees, up the hill, down the hill, sunny, rainy... B-E-A-utiful :-) I really mean it!

BUT... I know there's always a but with me :)

... in Switzerland, when going up, up, up a mountain, you get rewarded with a view that usually takes your breath away... now I do not want to say this Appalachian trail is not breathtaking, because it is really nice, but there's just no view after a steep climb, no view on the ridge, no view... no view...

Only, as the woods are so nice and different, so green and tunnel-like, just as in Disney movies :), I may say that after the second climb I didn't miss the view that much but was looking forward for the next tree-tunnel to come, leading me to creeks where I would have to hop from stone to stone in order to get to the other side :-)

Now THAT, I agree with everyone, is real hiking, real backpacking! :) A must for everyone considering himself a hiker :)

Check out our first day of hiking: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/211061908

The shelter where we thought of spending the night in, was crowded with people !! Imagine that :)

A group of volunteers of the Park used it as base camp whilst working on the AT during the day. (the AT, for those who did't follow is the Appalachian Trail... try typing that name a few times in a row... you'll soon appreciate that abreviation :) )

I must say, after having discovered Elk hooveprints and bear poop, it was quite a relief to be sleeping with 16ish other people... :) No bear would dare to come that near... :-)

On the second day, after eating a few serving of our delicious astronaut food (freeze-dried pasta... chicken and rice etc...) YUMMY! :) we hiked on the next morning without resting too long in between. We wanted to reach our car!

Our goal ? :) Bad Wolf's ribs! Told you about those right ? Can't go into too much detail here otherwise I'm hungry again :-)

Check out our second day of hiking: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/211061881

Back home we settled in all right and today was our easy chill-out time :) So not too much planned yet, except going to the movies tonight in Brevard... Let's see what that will be like :)

We'll be online soon!

Ps: I discovered Facetime today... LOVE IT :) No! Actually, I knew what it was for a long time but never actually tried it, until today :-)