And so our zero week begins. Today we get picked up and brought to Asheville. It’ll be a bit strange being off the trail for a week… getting a little taste of civilization again. I’m sure it’ll be good for our bodies to take a bit of a break, and the extra time should ensure that the fires north of Hot Springs will be out and we’ll be able to hike that section.
Our first zero day began with a nice big breakfast at a place called the Smokey Mountain Diner. I ate way too much, but thanks to the hunger, I didn’t feel disgustingly full. There were a bunch of other thru-hikers at the diner, and we actually joined a couple of the guys we had met the night before during breakfast. The food was good, and very reasonable. My breakfast included a steak, hash browns, eggs, a biscuit and gravy, and of course I added a pancake. They also make their own apple butter which was excellent, you just have to ask for some.
After breakfast we took a little stroll through town, and visited the outfitter. A bunch of thru-hikers were there waiting for a shuttle around the fires. I’m sure many of them will get pretty far in front of us, so I’m not really sure who we’ll see again, so we said a few goodbyes. Though, you never know… the trail works in mysterious ways.
We went back up to the room and packed up our stuff since we had to be out by 11. We found a nice little sunny spot in down at the edge of town near the campground by the river. We laid some of our stuff out to dry and enjoyed a few iced coffees while watching people come and go preparing for the music fest that’s in town for the weekend. Eventually the two hikers that we shared a room with came and found us, and we all headed off to get some lunch at Iron Horse Station. Another good restaurant, and I’d recommend the fried green tomatoes.
After lunch we just wandered around town. We left our packs in Starbucks’ room at the hostel in town so we didn’t have to lug them around all day. Hot Springs is a cute little mountain town that just happens to be full of hikers at the moment. It is very friendly to hikers though… they’re a true trail town.
Around 5:30 we got picked up by my buddy who lives in Asheville. He was nice enough to provide a ride to Andrew, one of the hikers that we’d been hanging out with. When we arrived to Asheville, we dropped Andrew off at his Airbnb place, then headed downtown for dinner. The place was called Jack of the Wood, which is a great bar, with some good food, and a tap list of mostly local beers. We didn’t hang out downtown for too long since we were all so tired. We’ll be heading back into town Saturday to visit a few breweries after a good nights sleep.
Like I said in a previous post, I probably won’t have a post for every day of our zero week, as we probably won’t be doing super interesting things every day. I’ll take some pictures of the breweries and of town, and do a bit of writing about those, but I’m not really sure how interesting it’ll be to read about me replacing my hiking pants (they’ve got a big hole in the gluteus-maximus area), or returning our water filter bags.
Enjoy your break!