Day 37 - 7th May - No Business Knob Shelter - Erwin, Tennessee - 6.3 miles

We have a long descent to Erwin, which takes nearly 3 hours following a well made contoured trail, winding its way gently down the steep slope. We can see the town directly below us, and hear the train whistles as they pass through the town, and it seems as if we are so close, and yet it still takes all morning. We meet a new hiker on the trail called 'Moped'. He doesn't stop talking and walks backwards in front of me bombarding me with questions about everything he can think of . I find it exhausting. The poor boy has no social skills, and I feel that I am being used as entertainment to fill in his hours of walking.

We arrive at the hostel called Uncle Johnny's in the late morning, and are able to get a private room with a double bed. It is a busy place, and hikers are coming and going everywhere. We get a shower and organise our clothes washing. We meet up with Stickbuilt and Tater again, and join the lunch shuttle to the Pizza all you can eat buffet. Some hikers eat 12 slices of pizza.

We dash over to the grocery store to shop and the lady at the checkout says how amazing that we have come all the way to the USA to walk the AT and to shop in their grocery store and how wonderful our accents are! This is a dry county so we can only buy beer and a mixed sweet bubbly concoction called smirnoff ice. The afternoon is spent sorting food, going through the hikers box to see if there is anything useful - we find a carabiner, a plastic sealed bag and a ladies medium black polyester hiking top. I weigh myself on the scales - 127 lb. We organise our food for the next 5 days and watch Stickbuilt with envy as he unpacks a mail package from home, with all his hiking food already in sachets for each day.

Stickbuilt opening his mail package

Digby packaging our food for the next 5 days

Our washing drying outside our cabin

For dinner the shuttle takes us to a different location and we eat chinese with Stickbuilt and Tater Chip and learn a bit more about them. Tater Chip comes from Alabama - his accent is so strong we can barely understand him. He is shocked that we want to drink alcohol whenever we come to town.