march 15- getting to franklin

Good day today. And long. Woke up after another chilly sleep, wasnt too cold though, nothing was frozen. And ive noticed some thing about the cold too. That is that my body can be warm in my sleeping bag, but as long as i breathe the cold air ill wake up shivering. So i tightened my liner over my face, and breathed through that with my sleeping bag hood cinched over my head. Still woke up alot, but because my back hurts when i sleep in one position for too long. Instead of both that and the cold. So the day started off well. Ate the poptarts given to me yesterday by the guy at the shelter, packed up my tent. owl, the lady who had given me the salmon jerky last week caught up just before i left, and this time she gave me venison jerky. Any protein is good protein. And by jerky standard this stuff was pretty good too. About 4 miles in, after a hard climb, i got to a fire tower that overlooked an entire valley, but i was so high up it was a valley full of mountains, and i can see rolling hills and mountains in every direction. I took a picture and went back down the tower, it was very windy and cold at the top of it. The higher you go the colder and windier it gets. The day warmed up pretty quickly after that, and soon i was down to a tshirt. Today was the first day it was warm enough to do that. I stopped at the first shelter, about 6 miles from where i started, to check the register, take a break, and change my socks. Ive found that switching to dry socks midday helps slow down the blisters. Dj had signed out of that shelter earlier in the morning, so i knew we were close. I continued hiking, over mostly easy terrain, except for a fun climb past a waterfall. I eventually made it to winding stair gap. I figured dj was camping further down the trail, but i needed to resupply food. After about 15 minutes i managed to hitch a ride into franklin. The guy who picked me up claimed to be rons cousin. Ron is the owner of 2 motels in franklin and one in hiawassee. Hes also a name ive been hearing repeatedly from people who know the trail well. Anyway, he dropped me off at the budget inn in franklin. Just before i rented a room i decided to turn on my phone and call dj to see where he was up to. When i turned my phone on i got a flood of missed text messages. One of them was from dj. Turns out he was staying at the budget inn with hermes, frances, carlie, and a new guy named bo baba. The front desk called his room and he came out. The motel told us they only allow 4 in a room so me and hermes split a room. I took a walk and picked up some food. And then we hung out until we went on a beer run and just sat around chillinng, eating and drinking. We're all pulling a zero day tomorrow. Which means that were not hiking at all. We all have to resupply before we hit the trail on sunday either way, and most of us have achy joints from the past few days of hiking. Its gonna be a relaxing weekend. And when i get back on the trail on sunday itll be a short day anyways, maybe about 5 miles, because im 6 miles ahead of everyone else.