Day 18 (updated)

At Fontana Dam - 0 miles today - 164 miles total

Woke up and walked down to the bathrooms where we met a bunch of other hikers, fresh out of the woods, who were waiting for the shuttle into town. Caught a ride with them and were dropped off at the general store/laundromat/post office. There was some confusion as to where our mail drop was sent, so as we were simply milling around in our rain-gear waiting for our laundry to be done, Mike walked up to the lodge and found our box there. We got everything together and went to use the ATM at the general store only to find it broken so off we walked to the gas station to use theirs. Across the street from the station was a pavilion where a bunch of other hikers were sitting - we left our packs there as we went inside (found no ATM) so we cut our losses and sat with the other hikers and had a couple beers. It was getting to be the late afternoon now, and we still wanted to hit the trail so we headed back down the road towards the dam (walking of course...) where we went over our gear and food supply one more time, made some phone calls (there were no pay phones and only one spot in a 5+ mile radius where you could get a signal for cell phone service- all resort employees used walkie talkies), and headed across the dam to the park boundary. We immediately realized that in all the excitement we had forgotten to really eat anything substantial, and mike noticed that the camera had been misplaced. We had a snack, checked the time (it was now 6pm), and thought it would be a good idea to just head back to our campsite for the night (and hopefully find the camera hidden in our packs or at the general store where we thought we might have left it...). Also, because in the Smokys you are required to stay only at shelters and designated campsites or face big fines, we would have had to hike almost 6 miles straight up (in the dark through 'bear infested territory') before would could set up camp for the night. So we set up our tent, found the camera stuffed in the bottom of mike's pack, and went to bed by 10pm looking forward to a fresh start tomorrow.