We had a really good nights sleep last night, my best nights sleep so far since hitting the trail. We laid in bed for a while watching tele then headed to the Smokey Mountain Diner again for breakfast, French Toast for me and Smokey Mountain breakfast for Nigel (egg, ham, shredded potato, muffin and gravy). Great value meals at this diner. Nigel's picking up the American lingo and keeps saying 'yes marm (mam)' or ' thank you marm'! On the way out we saw a hikers dog, waiting for its owner curled up outside on a sleeping bag. Poor thing was shivering, we felt very sorry for it.
It was very cold out this morning and there was a thin dusting of snow on the ground. Hot Springs is a very small one street town. The buildings/shops here are all very spaced out, the locals don't walk anywhere they drive everywhere instead so each shop has parking space outside. We even saw a drive through ATM in Hiawassee. The only people walking around town are hikers! It is a hiker friendly town though and the pavement is marked with the AT logo at regular intervals through the town marking the trail.
After breakfast we did our next five days trail food resupply shopping at Dollar General plus got a few extra protein snack bars from the outdoor store. We then had a coffee and tea drink stop in the Artisun Gallery, followed by lunch next door at Iron Horse Station, both the only reliable WiFi spots in town we managed to get our last week's blog posts uploaded. We had a lovely lunch, I had a warm chicken salad and Nigel a vegetable panini. It was good to have some healthy food for a change.
After lunch we visited the Hot Springs Spa - World Famous Natural Hot Mineral Water apparently. Private jacuzzi style mineral baths with invigorating, restorative waters averaging an ideal temperature of 102 degrees Fahrenheit and nestled along the banks of the French Broad River. Very relaxing for an hour on what turned out a lovely sunny afternoon.
There's a railway line running through the town, a coal freight train went past, it was about half a mile long! It went on forever.
In the evening we were invited to a community dinner. Some of the locals get together once a week and bring a selection of home cooked dishes, pasta, chilli, pizza, cake etc. for everyone to share. Hikers are always made very welcome there. Somebody introduced us as we arrived, we were made to feel very welcomed and had a nice chat with a few locals. We saw a few other hikers we'd met on the trail there too.
We had a thoroughly enjoyable relaxing rest day.
No comments:
Post a Comment