Day 14 - Big Spring Shelter to Winding Stair Gap - Franklin - 9.1 miles

We arrive at the road at Winding Stair Gap around midday to be greeted by a group of oldies - Baptists from Florida who come every year for a week to be trail angels to the hikers. We are smothered with drinks, snacks, and  chocolate cookies, so we eat up.

Four Baptist Trail Angels from Florida, with Wizard and Eric the Red

They ring Ron Haven who does the shuttle for the hikers and he arrives to drive us into Franklin - about 15 miles down the road. There is no charge for this service. We discover that Ron owns 3 motels in Franklin, a laundromat and several other businesses totalling an investment of about $25 million. He  loves helping hikers and he is a bit of a legend on the trail. Ron takes us to the Sapphire Motel, and says he will pick us up at 4.00pm to drive us around town to do all our shopping.

This shopping trip with Ron and 22 other hikers in his big yellow school bus is one of my most enjoyable memories of the trail. First stop is the Post Office - we wait while 3 hikers dash inside to collect packages. Next stop is the Eagle Outfitters. All 22 hikers disembark - 'You have 40 minutes' yells Ron. Hikers buy up big - new hiking gear and new clothes and queue up to pay. I estimate that at least $2000 worth of sales have just gone through the register. Back in the bus and off to Walmart - 40 minutes there to buy food and then back to the motel. All through the journey Ron is in his element - cracking jokes and providing commentary in a very slow drawling southern accent. I will share the best story: "See those two tennis courts? This is a dry county (no alcohol), but federal laws state that if you own two tennis courts you can sell alcohol, so all these tennis courts started appearing! Once the mayor realised how stupid it was, they repealed the dry laws.

Ron Haven on the right, with his renovated bus - sad it is no longer yellow!

We eat at the Mexican restaurant over the road from the motel with Earl, a retired policeman, at 45 years old. After 25 years you can receive a pension of 70% of your salary. He is very sunburnt from the trail, and I suggest that his trail  name should 'The Red Baron'. We never see him again and wonder what happened to him. i order a 'Jumbo Margerita' which is the special for the day - a huge glass - probably holding 3 cups. All the tequila goes to my head after being alcohol free for so long and we stagger back to the motel.

We meet Food Network, Mr T, the two girls with Clare the dog, and Lori, the Californian that we made friends with around Day 4. She is not very fit and trying to keep up with a group of hikers who walk faster than she does by 'slack-packing' - hiking without her pack, and paying huge amounts of money for shuttles to be dropped and collected. The next time we meet up with Lori is in Maine, and she is walking southbound.