Day 0

We're officially on our way! We arrived in Blairsville Georgia Friday night, got up Saturday morning and were dropped off at Blood Mountain cabins to meet up with the Warrior Hikers. Everyone (in Warrior Hike) was given their gear; everyone was smiling like little kids at Christmas walking to their cabins with huge smiles and arm loads of boxes and bags. Cody, Gary, myself and our newest friend and cabin mate, Chris stayed in Beaver cabin. Each cabin here has an animal name. We were lucky enough to share our cabin with a lovely little (54lb.) stuffed beaver named Beatrice who before her untimely death was road kill in Iowa. She was very dusty and looked like she may crumble into a cloud of dust at any moment. We had a cookout last night and stuffed our faces with hot dogs, hamburgers and beer. We met everyone and so far everyone seems really cool. Everyone is as excited as we are and the excitement seems to just keeps building. Our cabin had a bedroom downstairs and a loft upstairs. Chris had the bedroom, Cody and I took the loft and poor Gary got the futon in the living room staring at the creepy beaver all night. There was a "cabin log" aka a notebook that everyone writes in when they stay at the cabin, which was filled with stories of the beaver coming to life at night and of kids talking about how scary it was. When Cody, Gary and I were ready for bed, we came inside off the back deck and went to bed, about 5 minutes later there is a huge thud sound downstairs and we hear Gary say, "What was that? Was that you guys?" And I was like "no I thought it was you" then I started making a clicking beaver sound (which may not be accurate to the sound a beaver really makes) but then we hear Chris bust out laughing in the bedroom and then we all went into a fit of uncontrollable giggles for a few minutes. I think we were a little slap happy, or it could have been the beer. 

 Today everyone has started the 8.5 mile Approach trail (consisting of a climb of 2,000 feet in elevation and 600 stairs) at Amicola Falls which leads to the official start of the Appalachian trail at Springer Mountain. I decided to opt out of the approach trail and meet up with everyone on Springer Mountain tonight which is where the AT starts. I am taking Sharon, a Warrior Hiker's car and driving to meet up at Springer Mountain. Sharon is leaving tonight due to work and will be joining us in a month or so. By taking her car I'm shaving her an additional hike back to her car on the morning so it worked well for both of us. I'll spend my afternoon searching for instant coffee in a tiny Georgia town around Dahlonega..,and maybe grabbing some more denatured alcohol for our stove. The weather is fantastic today, sunny and warm, but we've heard it's going to be cold and rainy in a few days...at least we are getting off to a good start. In 3 days we will be coming into Neel's Gap (where we stayed last night at the cabins) and will be reapplying again. Saturday we will be picked up by a group of Marines at 5:00pm and they're providing hotel rooms for us in some little town. 

Everyone in our group that we've talked to seems to be pretty laid back and like minded. Everyone out here to escape from society for a bit and figure out what they want to do after the AT. A few have never camped for more than a night and some are pretty experienced. It seems to be a fun group of people and we are all looking forward to officially stepping off on the AT tomorrow. We also added 2 other members to our group, Jesse and his PTSD service dog Cooper. I'll try and post another update when we come into Neal's gap in a few days, although signal there isn't good at all.