attroll

18 March 2010
The ride on the Amtrak was long and very tiresome. There were three of us that were riding the train together, Made Mike, Geo and myself. Mad Mike was only hiking north from Georgia for 60 Days; Geo was only hiking for two weeks. We arrived at our final destination to be greeted by Josh of the Hiker Hostel. We all got our room arrangements. I called Hopper who had driven down in her car from Kentucky to hike with me for a few days. She showed up and we talked and talked about out hike together. I had previously met Hopper through the web and chatted online a few times. Our connection in how we met was unusual. I was selling the last copies of my 2009 guidebook Appalachian Pages at a discount price and my wife Donna was suppose to me mailing them for me. Donna had a habit of not mailing them as soon as I had them packaged up. I got frustrated and started mailing them myself. When I started mailing them the first ordered I mailed was Hoppers and I shipped her books in the wrong manner. Hopper emailed me and asked where her books were. I explained that I had shipped them wrong and she was patient enough to wait. That was where our friendship started and the start of our thru hike together.

After we were all settled in with our accommodations the four of us went out to dinner at a placed called the Oyster Bar in Dahlonega, GA. I tried raw oysters for the first time. They were not too bad but I could not imagine eating a bunch of them without getting sick.