June 8th Erwin, TN

The weather has been very hot lately, but no rain (I've been crossing my fingers). We've been sitting here in town for a couple days for some health reasons. I hope we can move out soon and get hiking again. The town is very nice with a river to go swimming and a movie theater where we saw Zohan and Indiana Jones. I have been reading a lot on this trip. I read No Country For Old Men and I am now reading The Broker. We Have hiked about 340 miles and have about 120 left until we get to Virginia. It is not too far away, I am very exited to get there. We had some trail magic the other day just before we got to the top of big bald Mountain. Trail magic is food that is dropped along the trail by non-thru hikers. We were hiking up a huge incline and felt like it was never going to end. Suddenly we saw a Tupperware box full of cupcakes, carrots, coffee, and water. It was the best thing i had seen in 4 days. We were hiking with three guys from North Carolina, it was fun camping every night and playing the guitar and singing songs from the 90's, i love that! Yesterday i realized that my pack was getting a little too big. A Guy from Manchester was looking to get a bigger pack so it worked out. I sold him min and picked up another one. I was able to drop 5 pounds from my pack yesterday. I've been missing home and especially Barb a lot but i have to get as far as I can out here. The hiking doesn't get any easier but i hope time goes faster.

Mike "Rolex"
GPS Logs:
http://wbafinc.motionbased.com
Williams Brothers Adventure Foundation:
http://www.wbafinc.org

June 1st Hot Springs, NC

The past few days our bodies have been feeling pretty good for the most part. I think that we are really getting in shape out here. I weighed myself today and i weigh about 165 pounds! When i left i was 183. The place we are staying in is called Elmer's. it is an old Victorian mansion with lots of rooms. It is mainly for hikers to stay while they are resupplying just like us. Recently we have profected the art of running while we are hiking. When we are going down hill our packs push us and we fly down hills only using our poles to slow us down a little bit. We figured out using the GPS that we can pick us about 5 miles per hour doing that! Lets hope no one gets hurt. I am glad to be out of the Smoky Mountains. Although there were some great views, there were some very hard climbs. It rained most of the time we were. We are about 180 miles south of Virginia, it is going to be so cool to hit there. We are all exited that we are starting to feel a lot better and do 20 miles days like we had planned to. Our spirits have been a lot higher and have been hiking and feeling a lot better. It really makes the trip better. I even climbed a tree right before we left the smokies. It looked as if it had been burned or and insect had killed it. either way it was a cool tree. We were also up in a cloud when i climbed it. We hope to have more days like we did yesterday where we hiked 23 miles. So far it has been a great experience!

Mike "Rolex"
GPS Logs:
http://wbafinc.motionbased.com
Williams Brothers Adventure Foundation:
http://www.wbafinc.org