Today was white powder day.

I just had a revelation that everything I ate today started out as
white powder. (OMG I need some fruits and vegetables.) I was the lucky
recipient of someone's extra baggie of instant vanilla pudding that I
had for breakfast this morning; all you have to do is add water.
(Thanks Red Hawk!) For lunch I made a package of dehydrated hummus in
a tortilla. You are supposed to add olive oil but alas I had none, so
I added extra garlic powder of course....ahhhem.... And for dinner I
prepared a package of instant mashed potatoes. Oh yeah, I did have a
granola bar and a Little Debbies Nutty bar. Ok I have nothing else to
say about the variety of my diet in content or color.

Today, I also did what every backpacker fears the most. I usually
remove my water reservoir from my backpack before filling it, but I
left it in because it's difficult to get it back in without taking
everything out of the pack first and YES I had some kind of spaz
attack and dumped almost a liter of water inside my pack. It was like
it had rained inside my pack. All I can say is that is a hard lesson
learned. I will not be doing that again.

Today was an amazing hike. Starting the day over 6,000' and dropping
to under 2,000' elev. is like walking to another planet. I started the
day in winter and ended in summer. The lower I got the warmer it got
and all the trees had leaves already and there were wildflowers
everywhere.... trilliums, firepinks, dutchmans britches, pussytoes,
phlox, spring beauties, solomons seal, toadshades, trout lilies, and
more. It was a beautiful day to end my hike through the Smokies. I had
been warned repeatedly about how hard it is to get through them, but I
had a fabulous time and could not have had better weather. I did hike
through feet of snow at times, and only occasionly wished I had
brought my gaitors, but I only postholed to my knees a few times.
So what's next you ask? Well, we shall all find out soon enough.