April 28th - Yesterday we got half way down Hump Mountain and had a great spot to weather the storm.  Our tent did great, although a guy with us did not. He survived and so did we. This is the 4th day of no cell signal. We climbed on a ridge this morning to get a message out. After losing that signal, we used another hiker's phone to check on Joyce's safety. My mom got through to her and that was a load off.
I know that I will probably regret this, but if you slackpack the trail, your cheating. We have seen very few people on the trail since Erwin going NOBO (North Bound). Most seem to be "Slackerpacking". Are you a thru-hiker if you are paying someone to schlep your crap for you?...unless you have an injury. We planned to hike 17 miles today, but missed a trail marking and that's when the day went down hill. We are not sure where we are or how far we have gone. Our calculations put us around 19 miles. After figuring out that we missed a marking, we hiked to the next water and hoofed the water to the next flat spot we found. If you are not camping in a designated camping area, it's called stealth camping. We rushed to set up our wet tent from the night before and eat, which means we sat on the trail (only flat spot away from the tent) and ate under cooked chicken cheese and rice without the chicken for dinner. Oh yeah, we passed mile 400. It's been 5 days since our last bath. We have decided to stop at a hostel in Hampton tomorrow for resupply and dinner with friends. Our appetites have finally caught up to us and can't seem to eat enough.
In a final note, we have been thinking of Joey today. This would have been his 53rd birthday. Wish he was with us.