Chilling Out in Hot Springs

Yo. We're in Hot Springs, NC right now, taking our first day of no hiking to give ourselves a bit of rest. This town is real cool, caters a lot to hikers cause the trail is literally the sidewalk of the main street. We're staying at the Sunnybank; a 19th century Victorian farmhouse, run by this old thru-hiker Elmer, that makes amazing vegetarian meals for us at night. We got a great room and nice beds for only $15 a night. The weather seems to improving as well. Hiking out of the mountains yesterday I spotted a monarch butterfly and a dragonfly, symbols we hope of incoming spring. We haven't heard word of any more snow or serious cold snaps, but once you get back up to the higher elevation it's hard to tell. The country we've been hiking in the last couple days is already a lot different from the Smokies. We passed over this mountain called Max Patch; a huge bald covered only by wild grass. We had lunch near the top and got to sit around and rest in some warm sunlight. Our boots are finally getting a chance to dry here in Hot Springs as well. That's it for now,
Phil

p.s. some captions for the new pictures posted: The picture of me on the snow-covered mountain we took 2 days outside of crossing the Nantahala River and the Nantahala Oudoor Center. That morning we followed bobcat and coyote tracks along the trail. The picture of Adam in the snowy tunnel of rhodedendron I took the same day of hiking. The third picture is of Adam at an old shelter on top of Blood Mountain, GA right before getting to the Walasi-Yi Hostel on our third day. I just read through Adam's post, and he went into great detail (finally), so I'll stop writing.

Thanks everyone for keeping up with our updates, also thanks to our parents, especially Adam's mom Stephanie for making sure we have food to eat out here.