Still in Erwin...

So I'm bogarting 2 computers in the Erwin Public Library. One computer is (very, very slowly) uploading 4 or 5 pictures from my camera to the blog. After about 25 minutes of waiting, I thought I'd try to send a few emails and give my parents and my advisor some pictures. The browser system here is so old, I literally CANNOT compose an email. Sorry! I tried! Anyway, I'll try to highlight what we've been up to. Since Hot Springs, it was rainy and cold for a couple days. We hiked a well-known AT bald, Max Patch, and it was hell. There were 60 mph wind gusts trying to knock us off our feet as we hiked up and all around this ~5acre bald. The views would have been gorgeous had we time to look, but the wind was stinging our faces and I had tears flowing down my cheeks the whole time. The AT is a mean bedfellow. Also, and I don't remember if we've shared this, but Jesse's zipper has stopped working on his sleeping bag, so I've had to zip him up each night with his auxillary zipper (that sits at the bottom for ventilation). At the post office today here in Erwin we received a replacement part that should fix it. We went over Big Bald yesterday, and it was much nicer. It was sunny, in the mid-fifties or maybe even 60, and we loved walking around without trees encroaching upon us. We hit a meadow about 2 miles before we stopped the day before, and we knew it was coming. We had hiked 15 miles to get there, the last couple of them felt like they were straight up. When we hit the meadow, that scene from Bambi ran through my head about Bambi getting excited and rushing into the meadow. The I remembered the last 2 miles we had to hike and it was just like Bambi's mom stepping in front of me and curbing my excitement. I will say one thing about the AT in North Carolina. Most of the day you're not pleased at the trail and its creators because they've chosen to take you 7 miles south (yep, away from Maine) to avoid a few homes or an extra 6 miles to do a lap around the mid-section of a mountain. But at about 5:30 p.m. when you're feet are sore and you're tired as all get out, knowing you don't have to climb to the top of the mountain makes you praise the AT trail maintenance crew. We're not too far from the official end of our time in North Carolina. We've been skirting the boundary of TN for a while now, so its about time to enter the 3rd state officially. I realize this is quite disjointed, but we're still waiting for the 6th picture to upload. I hope the fans back home ;) appreciate it, because this is serious town time we could have been spending at the cinema or the one bar that Jesse had to google for us to find. I apologize, we could only get 3 pictures to load. But after 1.5 hours, we're headed to lunch and then going to hitch back to the hostel and hit the trail. I hope you enjoy the pictures, we tried really hard! Cheers!