Update for Sunday, April 25

I'm in Johnson City, Tennessee, with my girlfriend, Ashley, for the weekend.We stayed in our room at Days Inn last night and fell asleep during SNL. Tonight we have plans to take in some folk music at The Acoustic Coffeehouse downtown. Purely by coincidence bluegrass and folk music has been a staple of our dating life since I took her out to Cafe Nola in Frederick in November. It just seems to find us wherever we go.

Ashley arrived late at night on Friday to meet me at Kincora. Kincora is a legend of a hostel situated in the hills of Tennessee at 412.8 miles from Springer Mountain, just .2 miles off the trail. The name comes from a mountain in Ireland [the owner, Bob Peoples, has a heavy Boston accent]. The hostel is a simple structure attached to a house. The second floor is a bunkhouse; the first floor is a kitchen and common room with an additional small bunkhouse and a private room. Everywhere on the downstairs ceiling there are pictures of hikers from 1996 to the present posing next to the Katahdin sign; the class of '09's shots were near the front door.

I had plans to slack-pack that morning with about a dozen other hikers. But when I woke up and looked outside, saw the rainy, gray sky, and then I remembered my last slack-packing experience, which was also rainy, I decided not to. Besides, I find that slack-packing breaks my northbound momentum. I'd prefer to walk the Appalachian Trail as it's meant to be walked: With a full pack in one direction.

So I zeroed. During the day I took the free shuttle into nearby Hampton, TN I think three times. The shuttle inched down the mountain on a twisting road without lane markers, and often without guard rails, and deposited its riders in a plaza anchored by IGA.

In the evening, there was a bounteous feast. Honestly it was a great experience. I don't remember there being an impromptu hiker feast like this on my northbound hike in the summer of '09. Thin Mint cooked chicken Parmesan with spaghetti, while a hiker named 3 Bears made salad and a cake.

[From front left to right front: 3 Bears, Greendog, Pixie, Rummy, Patch, me, Creepy, Chef, Thin Mint, Little John, Tintin and Kashmir. Kincora, April 23.]

[Cake marking our progress along the Appalachian Trail, Kincora, April 23.]

When Ashley got there I had to abandon a game of Risk, hours long, in which I was just starting to dominate after having held Europe for the whole of the game and newly conquered North America. We stayed in the "Executive Suite," a room with a door and a full-sized bed downstairs. The walls were simple boards. Through one crack you could see the kitchen. Anytime anyone in the crowded bunkhouse overhead stood on the rickety floorboards we could hear it clearly. Not that I minded not getting a sound sleep. I'm used to that, being a light sleeper anyway. It was a good chance for Ashley to experience a trail hostel. Anyway, we were off to a hotel in Johnson City.