Location - Hostel at the Laughing Heart
Date - May 2
If I can do anything well, it's leave a shelter well before anyone else has so much as rubbed the sleep from their eyes. And on a day when town is only a handful of miles away, and none of my remaining food is appealing, oh man do I fly.
The town of Hot Springs is full to the brim with concert goers, but the Laughing Heart caters exclusively to hikers. I managed to snag a single room, and headed into town early. Hot Springs is a tiny town, just a single main street lined with stores. That main street also happens to be part of the Appalachian Trail, which is awfully convenient. My day revolved around various food options, french toast for breakfast, a burger sandwiched between two grilled cheeses for lunch, and wood grilled pizza for dinner. Because Rose was zeroing in town to hang with her boyfriend I had all of tomorrow to do my chores, so I made sure to laze around and enjoy it.
A special shoutout to Queen Diva at the Hiker's Ridge Ministries, a lovely lady who catalogs pictures of thru-hikers, and gives them wifi and cookies. A special calling out to the public library that charges you to use their computers. Come on. Who does that.
The music festival in town is drawing in the crowds, but is incredibly expensive on my poor hiker budget, so I believe I will be passing. The hostel is an excellent place to stay and lounge, despite being about ten minutes out of town. Hikers drift in and out, leaving and taking tons of free food and supplies, perfectly exemplifying the trail in that way. There's fresh coffee out in the mornings and I've already enjoyed a few bags of microwave popcorn that were sitting around the kitchen. It's definitely for hikers, by hikers, a place where real names are irrelevant, and the proprietor signs you in with your trail name.
Tonight I intend to both stay up late, and sleep in late, two things I haven't done in the past 20 days. We'll see how hard old habits die when the sun comes up though.
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