Friday began with a bit of bad news: the rim of my rear wheel had flared (read: been completely ruined) during the 50 miles that I had limped along with a broken spoke. To make matters worse, the bike shop didn't have another rim that would work with my bike. After a few tense minutes, Bill (the shop's mechanic) found a barely used wheel that I could use. The new wheel has 36 spokes (compared to 32 on the first wheel), which helps distribute the weight more evenly on the rim.
Allie finally got to Damascus, and we ate lunch before heading out for the five-hour drive to the Nantahala Gorge. We spent the drive catching up on minor happenings and by the time we got to the NOC, it was like I had never left. We got lost on the way to Cheoah Point campground, but that turned out to be a stroke of luck, since we literally chanced upon the incredibly beautiful Horse Cove campground.
We grabbed a spot near where a small creek fed into a larger stream and we set up out camp. I barely had the tent up when one of our new neighbors walked over and introduced himself as Mike. He invited us to join him and his friends for a delicious dinner of trout, cornbread, corn on the cob, potatoes and watermelon. Mike and his friends, all from North and South Carolina, had spent a few days at the campground, fishing the stream that ran past our sites. The trout they had caught and cooked was unbeleivably good, and it saved us a lot of trouble that first night. We talked with them for an hour before heading back to our tent, loaded with firewood that they had given us. In fact, Mike came over with some special starter kindling and had our fire going almost before we had settled in.
Here's a shot of the whole group. The shortest one in the photo is Jennifer, who's a pretty damn good fisherman herself.
I'm all the way on the right, sporting my patented "Left Leg Tan, Right Leg White" look.
We didn't get to enjoy our fire for long, since a heavy rain blew in after we got back to our site. We sat in the tent, watching our fire, until we finally fell asleep.