Hello everyone. Look at this semi-timely post. To be honest, I have no excuse not to post since we did an unplanned zero here in Waynesboro, VA. Let me back up to where I last left you.
After our blitz to Daleville, we had planned a zero to recuperate and eat. We had also planned to meet up with my family on the 3 and 4 of July. Neither of these was a problem. No, rather it was I had miscounted the miles and had not planned on our amazing pace that an "issue" arose.
Our rendezvous point turned out to be only 40 miles North of Daleville, and we had 4 days to do it. Do the math, that means we only have to do 10 miles a day! After about two weeks of 20+ days, that was nothing (we would do 10-14 before lunch, and then 8-12 afterwards). We did what any sane person would do. We took TWO zeros in town, and would take our sweet time with the rest.
After we did all out town chores, we loafed around the hotel, a local coffee shop and a Wendy's. In doing so, we saw basically everyone we had met along the trail up to this point-- even some people we hadn't seen since Niel's Gap. That was pretty cool.
The following three days are summed up in the following sentence. We slept in, took long breaks, eat extra food (since that is what we do in our down time) and overall took it easy. We didn't do anything terribly crazy, but we had a blast. Tenderfoot ended up spilling split pea soup on his wrist, and later sliced open his knee. So he was Tenderwrist, and is Tenderknee (his trail name did not change, but he was in fact tender). We got invited to Canada celebration with Dragon and Camp, but we didn't make it in time. We swam in this awesome swimming hole under a bridge, had an encounter with a bee-infested shelter and spring, and I narrowly avoided a new trail name.
I had packed another two-pound bag of Swedish Fish, and ate a pound of it the first sitting. I proceeded to dole the remaining fish because I had been told that if I ate another two pound in 24 hours, that a new name was imminent. So I am still Seeker... for now.
We met my family day four out of Daleville at a forest service right off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We hiked down to a 200 foot water fall and then up to the next shelter on the trail. Overall, we did between 5 and 6 miles as a family. Really they got a brief taste of trail life. They hung out with the other thruhikers over dinner (everyone later told me that they were awesome) and passed out the extra food they had packed out.
The next morning we got off trail and went to Lynchburg for some Chick-fil-A. Never has Chick-fil-A tasted so good. For those of you who don't know, both Tenderfoot and myself worked at Chick-fil-A in the year leading up to our trip in order to pay for it. So we have had hour long discussions about our favorite combos as we hiked. To say the least, we would kill for some Chick-fil-A. Fortunately it did not come to that and the craving was satisfied with some waffle fries, nuggets and a strawberry milkshake.
We spent the rest of the 4th of July loafing around the motel.
The net morning, we made like Mulan and got down to business (if you didn't get that, that's on you). We did 25 miles, then 22, and a 24. Now the other crew of people we had outstripped out of Damascus had finally caught up. So we spent a lot of time with the Roadrunners, Atlas, Bearman, and the Von Traps (Taco Man, Fiddle Up, and Song Bird). We had planned on only doing 22 miles into Waynesboro on day 4 from family-time, but a major factor for us going there was that Waynesboro had another Chick-fil-A, but we would have gotten into town on a Sunday. So we ended up falling in with our previous crew and hiked with Crispy, Snow, Mc Double, Doobie, Boyscout, DJ (Dirty Jesus), Dragon and Camp into Waynesburo.
Tenderfoot had fallen behind a little bit, so there were nine hikers trying to hitch. After a grioup of Harleys, a Mini Cooper, and some sports car drove by on this road, we figured our best bet was to try calling up some trail angels. We split into two groups and road in (Doobie ended up finding a separate ride with some ex-Navy tech who had worked on ICBM navigation systems, under NASA on the Apollo missions, and currently taught martial arts at the local dojo). The lady who we rode with dropped us off at an Asian buffet. I asked about the Chick-fil-A and you would have thought I had swore to her face.
"You hiked all this way for a chain restaurant?"
I said yes.
Then she went of on this tangent about how she doesn't like their politics ("I have too many Gay friends that they hate."), how she prefers hole-in-the-wall restaurant ("I have traveled here to Colorado and never once did I stop at some chain restaurant.") and more. I was too tired to take the flak, and it was too far to walk after 27 miles. The others were eating here, so I ate at the Asian buffet. It was really good, and it was okay in the end.
Ironically, the lady had one of those "Coexist" stickers on her truck. I figured that meant, that they would be of the mind, "I do me, and you do you--lets all just be one big happy family." I guess not.
Anyways, on Sunday we ended going to a local church with Crispy. The YMCA hadn't opened yet, so we had not showered. The church had a sign that said, "Come as you are." We took them at their word. But it was an awesome service and they were super nice. To finish it off. Crispy later dumpster-diver behind Kroger and came out with six trays of corn cobs, with five cobs on each tray. We ended up having a cook-out at the park with some butter someone had left on the table, a bottle of hot sauce we found in the hiker box, and some meat we had bought. It was delicious.
We are getting ready to head out into this infernal heat with a goal of reaching Harper's Ferry on Saturday, so big miles up a head. The easy day were nice, but now we are rolling.
Happy trails,
-Levi
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