Date: 2019-06-13
From: Super 8 Daleville

To: Super 8 Daleville
Miles today: 0.0

Today I woke up not wanting to leave the hotel. It¢s always hard to leave such a comfy bed! I got up and went to breakfast. I still had food to sort through for my food bag and didn¢t feel ready to leave, so I asked for late checkout. I accepted that if I hiked out today, it would be a nero. As I ate breakfast I watched the news and they were talking about rain. The last week in Pearisburg and out had a ton of rain. They were talking about thunder on the weather and said ¢if you hear thunder roar, stay indoors¢. Welp, that¢s not happening! I mean someone actually did get struck by lightning on trail while up on the ridge, and he had a bloody gash on his head and passed out, later trying to ¢walk it off¢ before being convinced to go to the hospital and getting 10 staples. He¢s now called ¢Lucky Strike¢. This stuff is real folks! And it¢s hard because we can¢t skip every rainy day out here and just go to town or we¢ll never make it, but the rain can just be miserable. Your clothes are wet and they never dry, even if you hang them up. You only have one dry pair of clothes, so you have to either wear those hiking the next day and get them wet with sweat, or wear the wet ones again. And the shoes get wet and take forever to dry! And if your tent is involved, it¢s heavy and soaking trying to take it down or put it up. It¢s all just so unpleasant. And yeah, it¢s the reality of the trail, but day after day after day of that is just miserable. We¢re not indoors, having to run 5 feet to our cars to go to work, we¢re out here in the thunder and the lightning, stuck on ridges while the storm wails on us, soaking wet and freezing, chafing from the wetness, and just overall uncomfortable. Again, reality of the trail, it just sucks. Anyway, I was lucky to have been slackpacking for a few of the rainy days, and now it was looking better for the next week. I headed back to my room and went back to bed for a bit since I had late checkout. I woke up and brought all my stuff into the lobby to organize. I was a bit stressed because I had so much food leftover, since I didn¢t eat out of my food bag a lot in Pearisburg. My appetite is definitely better and I normally eat through my food bag, but this time it was just a matter of towns and eating out. So I had basically twice the amount of food I needed and it was a bit stressful. I think I had 9 mountain houses. Um yeah! I decided with all those dinners I would try to make it to Waynesboro. As I was dealing with all of that, two thru-hikers came by. I had seen a few older folks who looked like section or thru-hikers, and these two looked more in their 30s. Their names were Silver Fox and Three. Silver Fox sat with me for a while, somewhat shocked by my food situation. As the hours wore on and we were talking, it became clear that I might not even do a nero. We had spotted Buttercup and Husky and they were going to nero 5 miles to the first shelter. That¢s what I was thinking, but it was getting late. Silver Fox offered for me to stay in his room for free, which was very nice, so I decided to just stay. Salamander had also texted me that she was two days behind, so I figured the zero would help her catch up to me. Three, Silver Fox, and I went to the Mexican place again. This time I got a steak quesadilla, which was very yummy. We got these massive margaritas too to split and I probably had too much. I was having a blast, but was definitely feeling it. I was frustrated that I was taking another zero, but at the same time was having a good time. It¢s a hard balance. We ran to the gas station after that and bought more alcohol. I never ended up finishing the drinks I bought because I was just full and knew I had hit my limit. We hung out in the hotel room and watched TV and then went to sleep. The Virginia blues are definitely here folks; I¢m hoping I can bust out more miles soon. Little Debbie