The Mother of all Trail Updates

Big and Bedbug dropped a load of photos and a few videos on me this week, so I've been ever so slowly posting them to the Flickr site and YouTube. In my brief messenger-based conversation with them, I devised that they are still enjoying the trail, still enjoying each other, and smell like Big's dorm room in college (some of you know what I'm talkin' 'bout). Follow the links below and enjoy!

Great Smoky Mountain National Park
Shelters with bear cages, Clingman's Dome, Icewater Shelter
Flickr Section

Max Patch, NC
A great big grassy bald that everyone sights as beings one of their favorite spots on the trail. Also, Bedbug finds some trail magic ... a bucket of PBR!
Flickr Section

Hot Springs, NC
Backseat Hollywood comes to visit and we stayed at Elmer’s Sunnybank Inn……notorious spot for hikers to rest their weary feet and souls. Hot Springs is the first town that the AT crosses through
Flickr Section

Miss Janet's House
Miss Janet's House is a crazy, fun hiker hostel right in the middle of the friendly Tennessee town of Erwin. Miss Janet has turned her wonderful home into a bunk house for hikers. She shuttles, cooks, cleans, welcomes, and anything else a hiker may need her to do. Southern hospitality personified! We hiked into here Wednesday and she shuttled us up to the TRAIL DAYS festival
Flickr Section

TrailDays
Trail Days is a festival held annually in the town of Damascus, VA for hikers, locals, families, and mostly people wanting to gather together and celebrate their love for the Appalachian Mountains and the great outdoors. It is a great chance for thru hikers past, present, and future to share stories, meals, and memories. We enjoyed it very much because it really gave us a chance to relax and get out of what we call “trail mode” where it is easy to focus on pumping out miles daily and forget about enjoying the experience. Now that we are back, we are ready to get back on the trail and ENJOY!!
Flickr Section

Big & BedBug in on the Small Screen

Big & BedBug have delivered a few videos so you can watch them in live action. Thankfully, they are not scratch n' sniff...

Follow the links to YouTube and take a look:

Checking Out a "Bald"
Big and BedBug come across a "Bald" in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Apparently, the wise, bearded Big thinks this is a big deal.
YouTube Link

How to Hike Lesson
Big and BedBug teach us a lesson in hiking technique while on the "Bald." Lesson #1: Don't hike like Jimmy.
YouTube Link

BedBug Finds a Newt
BedBug finds a cute little orange newt. She proceeds to pet it, hug it, love it and then kills it.
YouTube Link

Food Rush at Trail Days
Not since the Katrina Disaster have there been this many starving, unshowered, tired people clamoring for food in a mad rush...until TrailDays in Tennessee. The only difference? These people CHOSE to be here!
YouTube Link

18.9 Miles in a Day!

Hey Everyone!

We made it through the Great Smoky Mountains safe and sound..........no bear attacks or unfortunately even sightings. But we did see lots of amazing views, meet really interesting folks, and hike lots and lots of miles.

The weather was great until Friday, cinco de mayo (no margaritas for us), when it began to rain about half way through our day. Everything (boots, hair, clothes, EVERYTHING!!) was soaking wet. Exhausted and relieved to be at the shelter on Friday around 4 pm, we laid our things out to dry. With the weather as cold and damp as it was outside all night long, our clothes came no where close to being dry. So we were stuck with damp, cold, dirty clothes to hike in on Saturday morning. After about an hour and a half of hiking in fog, the sun came out! Feeling in much better spirits, we decided to press on to the nearest hostel (Standing Bear) which pushed us to do our longest day yet ... 18.9 miles!

We are getting up and out early tomorrow morning and hitting the trail for another three or four day stretch until we get to Hot Springs, NC, where we will meet up with Momma Charlotte aka "Backseat Hollywood" for the weekend. We are staying at a hiker hostel/B&B called "Elmer's". It's legendary among thru-hikers and we've been really looking forward to checking it out.

So I guess that's about it for updates on our part. We think of all of you very often and hope this email finds you well. We have lots and lots of time on our hands to think about things and some of the most consistently thought of and talked about things are the people for whom we love and care!

Thanks so much for taking time to look at the updates on our website. It means a lot to us! Please leave comments and let us know what is going on in your lives.

Take care,
Big and Bedbug
www.ourathike.com

Big & BedBug In Live Action

Big & BedBug have now graced us with live action movies created from their camera. None of the clips are in HD, but believe me, you don't want to see this stuff in High Definition. Fuzzy is better when people haven't taken showers for weeks on end...

The best way to view these clips are by saving the files to your computer BEFORE you watch them (Do a Right-Click and Save As on each link to do this). Also, you need to have Apple's QuickTime view to watch these clips. You can download the free QuickTime viewer here, if necessary: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

Note: I just opened an account for JimmyJen at YouTube, which hosts movie files in various formats. I am going to attempt to post movies on the blog via this method so you don't need QuickTime to watch them. So click on the movies and enjoy!

Big Talks About Appalachain Trail Traffic: At the beginning of this clip, you expect to hear a profound commentary about the difference between life in the modern urban environment and surviving the untouched natural landscape. Um, think again...

BedBug Rides the Batmobile: This has little to do with thru-hiking other than revealing that most thru-hikers are on the verge of insanity.

BedBug Under Attack/Big is a Sweaty Beast: Apparently, BedBug was assaulted by a ferocious insect and explains it in great detail. Big, as most of us know already, is just plain gross.

BedBug Crosses the GA/NC Border: In an effort to protest the strongest issues facing our capitalist society today, BedBug crosses the Georgia/North Carolina state lines in clear violation of Federal immigration law. She is promptly arrested by the border patrol.

Visiting Blood Mountain

New photos from JimmyJen's visit to Blood Mountain are now on the Flickr site!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmyjen/sets/72057594124984357/