Hi everyone.  Today is Monday, April 9.   I made it into Hot Springs, NC yesterday, Easter Sunday, at 1:40 in the afternoon.  As soon as I came into town the first thing that I passed was the diner.  I stopped in and ordered a HUGE hamburger, fries, onion rings and  about 6 litres of coke (no exaggeration).  Well, when I left Gatlingburg, Beth and Bernie gave a bunch of us a ride back to the trail.  I hike for the day with "fleetwood" who is from North Carolina.  We planned on hiking 15 miles and since thunderstorms were predicted we had a fallback plan to hike ten miles to the first shelter/camping area.  We were making good time and had spectacular views; we were on the ridge line of the Smokies all morning.  Around 1:00 a thunderstorm was creeping in upon us.  At 1:45 it was really close and we were at the shelter so we decided to stay put.  After we hiked the half mile down the side trail to the shelter and settled in, the sky turned blue and cleared up.  I made up my mind (after trying to outrun a storm on the ridge line and getting caught in it 2 days ago) that it would be wise to stay put and make up the mileage tomorrow.  This proved to be the wise choice because the storm did come in about 2 hours later, (we spoke to some hikers the next day who left the shelter we held up in, and they did get caught in the storm) and we would have been caught in it.  We did a 22 mile day the next day and came out of the Smokey Mountains.  We were only going to do 20 miles, but when we got to the shelter area we didn't like the looks of it and moved on a couple of miles to a good camping site.  I hiked with "fleetwood" and "blue eyes" that day.  It was a good thing we moved on to the camp site, because we met up with some hikers a couple of days later who stayed at the Davenport shelter the same night we would have (stayed at our camp site instead) and they said the bear activity was heavy all night.  We hiked on another 15 miles on Saturday the 7th.  "fleetwood" (age 56) and "blue eyes" (age 61) cruise uphill, I on the other hand have to stop and catch my breath every now and then, so they move ahead of me.  However, going down hill and on open terrain, I cruise ( I average between 2 and 2.2 miles per hour).  I caught up with them on this gravel road in the middle of nowhere.  There was this guy from Cincinnati, Ohio (trail name "Apple") set up with lawn chairs providing trail magic- coke, oreos, cheeto's, chips- IT WAS GREAT!!!  We sat there and fueled up for the rest of the afternoon.  Went across this grass covered mountain called Max Bald, which was filled with a lot of local day hikers.  It was beautiful.  If I could figure out how to upload pictures, you could see it.  I hiked on the next few miles to the shelter for the night (took a wrong turn and hiked a lovely half mile down the wrong path until I realized I was not on the AT anymore, and hike on back - how the blind guy hiked the trail, I have no clue). I put in at Roaring Brook Shelter for the night because my stove broke yesterday and I needed to break it down and fix it so I could have a hot supper.  If the stove wasn't broken, I would have hiked on another 5 miles to the next shelter so I would only have a 13-14 mile hike to Hot Springs.  Good thing I stopped, got the stove fixed and made supper.  Went to re-start the stove to cook my lunch for tomorrow and the stove wouldn't work.  That made up my mind, the stove is going home and I will purchase a different model at the outfitters in Hot Springs.  A lot of people came into the shelter and it was a nice evening.  Had a good night sleep, (it was cold, low 30's, good thing I have a liner in my sleeping bag for added warmth when needed) and got up at 5:00 to head out on trail by 6:00.  I don't care to hike in the dark, it can be dangerous (in my mind) plus you miss the sights.  Hiked for about 45 minutes with a trail lamp, no problems.  I wanted to get up early and hike the 18 miles to Hot Springs, NC, so I could get in by the middle of the afternoon and get a hot lunch and just have an extra couple of hours to relax and call home.  Well, I got cell service on Bluff Mt.  It was great to get every one's Easter texts.  Thank you so much.  I got to Hot Springs and after lunch settled into Elmer's Sunnyside Inn.  This place is cool, is is a 150 year old mansion owned by this guy who hike the trail in 1976 and purchased the inn in 1978.  He caters to AT Thruhikers and is an extremely generous host.  He also provides vegetarian gourmet meals.  The food is GREAT (but not as good as the food the the Lovely Denise makes for me everyday). Let me say, that eating a lot of food when in a town is a must - I've lost 21 pounds in 21 days ( and I expect to lose another 20 by the time I get to Harpers Ferry. VA).  OH, that is the only hard part of being on the trail is that I MISS Denise SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH - it kills me.  So, I'm doing my zero day here, getting some rest, taking a hot tub at the mineral springs, getting new stove at the outfitters, sending home old stove and letters in mail, groceries, laundry, email, blog, etc.,.  It is now 4:00 in the afternoon and I still haven't done groceries yet.  A zero day gets filled up fast.  To all of you I need to call, please accept my apologies.  Cell service is sketchy at best, and it is Verizon - and if you have another service provider like ATT, Verizon blocks the signal and randomly will or will not allow other service providers use their cell signal.  I figured in a town like Hot Springs, that I would have cell service, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo. So, hopefully when I get to Erwin, TN in 4 days I will have cell service. There is NO payphone in this town, go figure.  Anyway, I have completed one eighth of the trail and I am , happy, healthy, homesick for Denise BIG TIME, and ready to move on to the next section of the trail.  Damascus, VA ( a couple of hundred miles up the trail) is the next big mile stone. That is all the news for now and I will update the blog in 2 weeks when I get to Damascus, VA.