Date: 2016-06-03
From: VA 625/USFS 222

To: Burkes Garden Road -Garden Mountain
Miles today: 20.9
Weather: overcast clouds

We started by doing the section from Garden Mountain down to Va 625. It was a long drive through Burkes Garden, but it was a beautiful area and a cute country town. The town had a general store which is operated by an Amish woman. She will stop at the store on the way out for sure! She was relieved today that the gravel road wasn't too bad up to Garden Mountain...and it was less than 2 miles of gravel. It had a very nice parking area and we sat for a few minutes before Sherpa went on his way! He crossed paths with Burly again and chatted for a minute. He also met a guy named gasket. We are sure glad he asked how gasket got his name... Apparently one night he grabbed a bottle to pee into instead of getting out of his tent. Turns out a part of his water filter called the gasket was in the bottle. Oops! After Sherpa was well on his way, she headed down the Mountain. She stopped in and the Burkes Garden general store. There was a mish mash of Amish goods, including cook books, hats, jams, maple syrup and many other tasty treats. She ordered a sandwich from Ms. Mattie who runs the store. The sandwich was very tasty as well...really tasty homemade sourdough bread. She enjoyed her sandwich on the porch and visited with some of the locals of Burkes Garden. They were all very friendly to her. After lunch she went in and purchased another load of fresh sour dough bread...she knows Sherpa will enjoy this at his lunch break today! She also bought a bottle of Birch Beer and a bottle of Saspirilla. We will split these later most likely. After lunch she braved the road down to VA 625. She was nervous to drive the road after the rains from last night. Thankfully the road was fine except for one spot that she was too nervous to take the car through. She pulled the car over and walked the 1/2 mile to the trail head to get Sherpa. He wasn't quite there yet, so she hiked up the trial in her crocs in the mud like any wife would who was excited to pick her husband up and have him drive up the treacherous gravel road! She was relieved to see him...he lent her his trekking poles for the hike down to the gravel road. We returned to the car just in time. A logging truck was waiting to pass and couldn't get by her car. Sherpa decided to go through the mud that she was nervous about. The car made it just fine. We decided to turn around and wait...Sherpa got impatient and decided to just head out...the only problem was the log truck was still there waiting to go through the mud. There was no where that the log truck could go beside us, so Sherpa had to drive about 1/3 mile in reverse. Thankfully the log truck driver was very patient with us. After they passed we were able to get out easily! Thank you to Sherpa for driving us out! The next leg for today is finishing up the miles from yesterday from Old Rich Valley Road to I-81. While heading there, he ate most of that loaf of sourdough single handedly. She convinced him to save a little for dinner which resulted in the best BLT's imaginable. Sherpa hiked this southbound as well due to location of the end of the first segment. While she waited for Sherpa, she went to Rural Retreat to take care of laundry...a much needed task at this time. Sherpa really needs some clean hiking clothes! He arrived at I-81 right on time and we headed home...to the campground that is. The exciting thing that happened today is that we hit the quarter way point on the trail! We feel pretty good about our progress considering the days we had to take off.