Today we hiked a short day to Clingman's Dome where we ended the day. It was so foggy and cold all morning so we weren't able to see anything when we walked to the overlook on the summit. There was a volunteer at the parking lot who gave us each a pack of Oreos which was a nice surprise. Dirty Peanut and I ended up hitching a ride with a man who ended up being extremely friendly. He told us he was on a business trip for his work for the government as a computer consultant. He was taking some time to work on his photography which was a passion of his. On the way down he stopped and helped a couple jump their car. I felt very thankful to have met someone so generous.

Once we made it into Gatlinburg we went to the Grand Prix motel which was actually pretty nice given the places we'd stayed. Ambush, MP, Dirty Peanut, Samwise, Blue Kazoo, and myself shared a room and I saw Blue and Bullet at a room down the way. We ended up going out and getting Five Guy's where Samwise experienced his first ever root beer float which consisted of a root beer from Five Guy's and some ice cream from a nearby Baskin Robbins. For dinner we headed back out and got burritos and those who were old enough sampled moonshine at a local distillery. Before heading back we stopped at a convenient store to get some late night snacks. A few of us got ice cream and before we'd left I saw Dirty Peanut had already started eating her ice cream with her fingers and I had a good laugh. I was so happy to be hiker trash.

This morning I hitched a ride in the back of a pickup with Dirty Peanut and Ambush back to Clingman's Dome. It was warm and sunny in Gatlinburg but as we climbed to the top it started getting really cold and rainy. It was quite miserable though I was happy to be with such a great group of people.

We only ended up hiking 4 miles to Mt. Collins Shelter and on the way we hit over 200 miles! We tried starting a fire but everything was too wet so we called it an early night.