Beginning steps

Well we took a "zero" day today due to rain. Only left the tent a couple times all day to pee and get some food from down out of the bear bag. We have been moving well and the trail has been nice! We are happy that we have shaved our heads. A quick rinse in a spring feels like a shower, almost.  We are also glad that we are using trekking poles. They don't make much difference on the flat ground, but are a huge help on the uphills and greatly assist with breaking on the way down!  It is Wednesday evening, we started hiking in the late afternoon this past Friday and we are at about mile 54. Not bad for having a couple short days and not moving at all today. 
We have adopted trail names, as all thru-hikers do.  Officially we are Butch Culpepper and the Stonedance kid, aka "Butch" and "Stonedance".
We weighed in at a place called Neel's Gap, a nice outfitter store and lodge. My pack weighed just over 29 lbs and Butch's was just over 26. That was with full water and way more food than need be carried on the AT!  We have seen lots of other folks with much larger packs looking enviously at our small bags. Right away the talk among many hikers at the shelters has been about what to get rid of.  On the other end of the spectrum is our new friend we've dubbed "Fannypack".  He has everything rolled up and tied around his waist, weighs about 15lbs. That being said, he needs to stop more often for food and water and is sleeping in the rain in a minimalist bivy sack right now.
Our efforts at preparing food with the dehydrator, and vacuum sealing have been paying off. Deer jerky, dried fruit, homemade trail bars and our rice and lentil dinners have all tasted absolutely delicious out in the woods.  Especially tasty were some 'caramelita' bars that my mom made and we sealed up! 
We have been seeing lots of lovely flowers beginning to bloom. The tall trees are leafing out. There is poison ivy almost everywhere!  We haven't seen any big animals though there has been evidence of coyotes and bears on the trail.  Butterflies, millipedes, newts, woodpeckers and owls have been abundant. Lots of other birds offer a nice soundtrack as well.
We had heard that the town of Helen, GA, was worth checking out, so yesterday upon arriving at Unicoi Gap we hitched the 9 miles in to town to check it out.  It is a Bavarian themed tourist trap, but quaint and awfully surreal to come upon after being in the woods.  We had a bier and some Krautkapfen at The Old Heidelberg restaurant. Krautkapfen is sauerkraut rolled up with dough and pan fried, topped with big slabs of bacon and bacon gravy; delicious! We picked up a couple things at the grocery store and then hitched back out of town up to Unicoi Gap.  We headed up the trail which had become wet with rain that had come and gone, and set up camp at the first site we came across.  We managed to get the tent set up just before a storm rolled in, and have been here since. Hopefully it will be nice enough to dry our tent out tomorrow before we head off, but we will move somewhere regardless.
...pretty sure I just heard something rather large stumble through the woods just a ways over.  Oh well, "Fannypack" is sleeping just up the hill with his empty liverwurst wrapper next to his head. I'm not worried. Until next time, happy trails!