Within a week or so, I should be getting into Virginia. For the past few weeks, the trail has been weaving between North Carolina and Tennessee so we never really know where we're at. Damascus, VA is coming up though. It marks the forth and longest state. I'll also be hitting the 500 mile mark shortly after getting into VA. So, I have a pretty exciting two weeks coming up.
Stryder left to go back to Georgia right after the Smokies. Before he left though, we did some trail magic. We built a fire close to Standing Bear Hostel and spent the day cooking. I made 16 calzones over the day. Stryder made fried zoo-zoos. They're these cinnamon rolls wrapped around Snickers, fried in oil, and covered with icing. Good stuff.
I booked it into Hot Springs because I was trying to ditch a swarm of annoying dudes. I didn't realize that getting hit on all the time could be such a pain in the ass. Three miles from Hot Springs, my friend Slopes (not one of the annoying people) caught up to me. We went into town, got some bunks in the hostel, and went in search of food. We ran into Tyvek who had just got a jar of apple pie moonshine, then we walked down towards to bar. It was my friend Tarzahn's last night before he went off the trail, so that pretty much decided my plans for the evening. A big group of us hung out at the bar until closing time. When Tarzahn was going to bed, he yelled back at me, "I'll see you up the trail!"
The next day it took a while to get out of Hot Springs. Once we did get on the trail, it took about 6 hours to hike 8 miles. I got to a camp spot in the dark with my friends Cheese Water and Sir Towelly. It was Pace's birthday, so I made calzones for her and everybody else. Watermelon made cake-in-an-orange on the fire as well. It was a pretty sweet evening.
It took a few more days to get to Erwin, Tennessee. I pulled a 21 mile day into town. I don't normally like to hike that much, but it was raining and I was cold. I went to Uncle Johnny's hostel and got a spot in a cabin. The next day, Cheese Water and Sir Towelly talked me into doing a slack pack. Basically, the hostel drives you ahead with small bookbags and you hike back. Unfortunately, a guy named Just Jim fell and hurt his ankle on the slack pack. We were luckily with a couple called Sun Kissed and Jesse. She's a nurse and he's a Wilderness First Responder. So, the took care of his ankle and hiked him back to the road crossing to be picked up by the hostel.
My parents came into town for the weekend to visit me. They replaced my broken headlamp and spork for me. On Saturday, we went to a road crossing to do trail magic for everybody. We had stuff for Troyer's trail bologna and swiss cheese sandwiches for everybody. Dad made beans and we had tons of cookies, snacks, pop, and beer. The hikers loved it. Everybody that hiked by spent several hours hanging out. We had started the day with about 5 cases of beer, but those were all gone by the time we packed up. Our bottle of wine was drank too.
On to Virginia!
No comments:
Post a Comment