Too windy to cook?

Friday, May 03, 2013
Destination: Indian Grave Gap
Starting Location: Uncle Johnny's
Today's Miles: 8.50 Trip Miles: 289.92

Eight and a half miles to a stealth tent site just past TN395/NC197. The trail has followed and crossed the TN/NC border for ever. This is not a good tent site an add to that the wind @20-25 MPH and higher gust made for an iffy night, but I was hiking up hill and carrying four liters of water, about eight pounds, while looking for a place to camp. I passed up a lot of good sites but did not have enough water for setting up camp for dinner, breakfast, and starting off in the morning. Setting up the tent I saw the rain fly was still wet for a few days ago and I had forgotten to get it out and let it dry. The wind soon solved that problem. I met Stretch, Pantry, and Slow 'n Steady during the day. They were hiking together and they found found the good water source at the highway, but they back tracked to find a campsite and  I walked north and found this one. I had to walk back down the trail 75 yards or so to find a place out of the wind just to cook dinner.

 After settling into my tent I discovered that I had not packed my Nexus 7 tablet very well in my pack and had cracked the glass screen. About 20% of the screen was working and responding to the touch. Everything was viewable, just could not use the touch keyboard for text entry. Tried short hand code to update my Facebook followers and the response I was "you talk funny". So much for that! The wind is howling and gusting. Reminds me of the three little pigs and the wolf huffing and puffing to blow their house down. But my Big Agnes tent is holding up very well. It will make for a bad night for sleeping though! Getting dark, so I will settle down for some rest, if not sleep!



 "All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost" -J.R.R. Tolkien