Miles Hiked: 0
Miles Left: 1843.8
Ending Location: River road, Erwin TN. Cantarroso Farms Hostel

We awoke this morning to a fairly sunny day. Cursing the gods, we decided to take a zero day anyways. I was still trying to kick this cold, Owl wasn’t feeling well, and both of us were aching from hiking through all that snow.

After reserving the cabin for another night I promptly went back to sleep and didn’t wake up again till around 1pm. While I felt like a slacker, that’s precisely what I needed. Even after my nap I didn’t exactly light the world on fire as I ate leftover pizza, updated my blog, checked Facebook, and basically continued to lounge around in my bed the rest of the day. The biggest news I found out was that they just started filming a movie adaptation of Bill Bryson’s book “A Walk in the Woods”. It’s starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, and they are going to be shooting scenes on the actual AT. How cool would it be to be an extra in that!

Around two it started raining so Owl and I felt much better about our decision to zero. It intensified into a downpour and them later in the night it turned to snow as temperatures dropped below 20. I guess good idea week is continuing?! The owners of Cantarroso Farms Hostel were really nice and asked us if we wanted to grab dinner with them and then go see a movie. We both declined because while it sounded like fun that was way too much work. My goal for the day was to stay within 20 feet of my bed!

About the only other thing of note was that we finally tried the vegemite that Owl ordered off Amazon in honor of our two Australian friends. We put on music by Men at Work, set up several different breads to try it on and then cracked the can. From our extensive scientific testing, it’s not that bad on tortillas and absolutely horrid on a Pizza Hut breadsticks. Also it freaked me out that vegemite is not actually made from vegetables but it is a yeast extract. It was an unique experience, but we ended leaving the jar of it in the hiker box for future guests.

See, it was raining!