Day 15-16. 2-3 Apr. 136 of 2184 complete

Day 15, Burningtown Gap, 10 miles. So we had an excellent night on Siler Bald and awoke to a beautiful day. The plan was to go 11.2 miles but after a relatively easy hiking day we wondered into Burningtown Gap...  Well, you have heard me talk of trail magic with Gatorade and cakes...at the gap we ran into the king daddy of trail Magic...Mr Grits and Mr Possum. We come down the bill to find a massive tent set up and an awning with Grits cooking sloppy joes with cheese and buns, bags of chips and coolers of soda. We could not pass that up. THEN...possum pulls out a 1.75 ltr of Capt Morgan. Grits was in the Air Force and Possum had a dog name Zip so it would have been just rude to not have a little tipple of the Capt. So after an awesome meal we at an after dinner drink...at 2:30 in the afternoon. Well no points for guessing what happened next. Yep...an hour later the bottle was gone, money was collected a Possum and another friend headed into town for "resupplies". We set up our tents right there and continued the festivities. :) I went to bed at 1030pm and we had gone through another entire 1.75 ltr bottle Of Capt Morgan and approx 92 beers...there by explaining why I did not write a blog Entry last night. :) the trail magic was in full swing and Grits did say after 3 years of doing this it was the best night he had had. But that is not the end of the trail magic...BirdShooter you will not believe this one... Day 16, Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC), 12.7. Thanks to fresh mountain air and a bit of rain I awoke at 0745 feeling very good indeed...considering. We all help clean up the camp and then Grits lights up the grill and made us all blueberry pancakes. Then he says "I need to go resupply so will be happy to take all your packs to the NOC so you can slack pack the next 13 miles"...what a legend! So we threw all our packs into his truck and we got to walk the 12.7 miles with just a water bottle and some snacks in my pocket. Even Mojo and Skye got to slack pack so the we're loving it. after waking for two weeks with a 50 lb pack, you feel like a super hero going up these mountains when you're not carrying anything. An added bonus was the we now all walked the same pace so we all walked together most of the day which was great. Our friend Damn Yankee...an excellent dude who retired from the army a day before I retired from the air force, rode with the bags and was waiting for us when we arrived. So that is trail magic that will be very tough to beat.  We had a massive thunderstorm 10 minutes before we go to the NOC and got soaked just before we got here  it's suppose to rain The next two days so I think the trail is making us pay for having such a good time. :)  I'm all showered, fed and laundered in a room at the NOC so will think about the rain tomorrow...and walk anyway:)  By the way, Zip is still my trail name but a few of the guys are starting to call my Papa Bear...yes Czach I am twice as old as most of these guys. :) Damn Yankee is a few years younger than me  so he is becoming Uncle Yankee.  We'll see how long that lasts. Good night for now.