May 28, 2004 - We made it to Hot Springs this morning. We had a fun time running down the mountain trying to get to a dry building. Yes, it’s raining again. I woke up before it began to rain and packed up quickly because it looked like it could rain at any minute. Some of the other hikers at the shelter started to pack up as well, even though they had not planned on going into town until noon where Joe and I would meet them for lunch. About ½ mile from the shelter it started to rain hard and the wind was blowing pretty good so it was not a fun morning but it was only 3 miles to town. First thing was a hot breakfast of pancakes at the Smokey Mountain Diner. Then straight to wash clothes. While the clothes were being washed it was time to re-supply. After mailing my last journal letter I went to lunch at the Paddling Pub and had a ¾ lbs hamburger which took awhile to eat. After that Joe and I went to the library to use the internet and hung around till our lunch settled. Then grab a quick dinner of junk food and head off to the trail at 6:30pm. We thought we would just go a few miles down but decided to go to the next shelter, 12 miles away. It was almost pitch black when we got in at 10:30pm and one of the guys there had a dog that wouldn’t stop barking at us. We got in 14.2 miles for the day when we planned on about 5.
