Date: 2003-05-31
From: VA 638

To: Ashby Gap
Miles today: 14.2
Weather: overcast clouds

The last day of my third month. Good-bye May, you've been hard on us woods-dwellers. The constant wet has cracked the skin between my toes, and I rub anti-fungal ointment in daily. But, I'm still in the game, still in the game...I wake early and journal while the hostel sleeps. Then, suddenly, I hear a roar outside - more rain!?!!!!Yes, more rain.Buddha slips out early, ready to roll despite the wet. His pack is crammed with food. His shin feels better he says. Ah, youth..Wild Flamingo sits in front of the hostel TV, leg elevated on a chair, ice on his red and swollen shin. He is walking nowhere today.We watch some fantastic clips of the race horse Funnycide winning the Derby and then The Preakness. This is as hard as these colts have ever worked in their young lives. They are in hard physical training right now, going full out. This is It. The Brass Ring.Their hearts and lungs and muscles are as strong as they will ever be. They are strong! They also have shin splints, sore hooves, strained joints, impact injuries. Their muscles and tendons ache all the time. But their job is not finished.Am I being too broad here, metaphorically speaking? Ha!I suppose I could blame it on my foot, which was begging for a little respite after the hammering it had taken on the rocks descending to Panorama a few days ago. But the truth is that, upon seeing that cold, grey rain pelt down yet again, my nerve...just... broke."Can I stay here again tonite?" I pleaded. Mike arranged a 14-mile hike that would let me return to Terrapin Station that night. Deal. Mule, B-Rock, and Siesta, who came in last night, cram into the car with me. They have food shopping and maildrops to get. This new hostel is a real boon to hikers, who have long complained how hard it was to navigate the spread-out town of Front Royal. Now the hostel offers a free morning shuttle to all the necessary spots.We feast on sausage-and-egg biscuits, OJ and hot coffee, and then I must leave the cozy warmth of the car... all alone... in the rain... and walk.And I do. Through the sticky mud. This land is much lower, more like woods than mountains, a thousand to two thousand feet. The wild rose is blooming, spilling over fences, filling the nostrils with the scent of May. The shrubby Russian olive and honeysuckle entwine.The trail leads though fields and hedge tangles that host many songbirds. I see nests tucked in the snarled limbs, and adults with insects in their beaks. I get to see some up close, including a masked bird with a yellow breast and a white belly, singing away. It looks like a raccoon with that mask. Where are my bird books?! The brush and grass are soaking wet, and soon my shoes are too. Overhanging cherry trees dump their wet payload down my back as I push through.Later in the day, the typical oak-hickory forest gives way to a tall cathedral of 40-50 foot poplar trees. The tall trunks make a cool, green cavern, the canopy arching high above. It seems California-esque.Their green tulip poplar "blossoms" dot the Trail, each "petal" marked with a slash of neon orange. It's hard not to keep taking their picture.I lollygag the day away - the bird show is fantastic today. When I exit the woods, 20 minutes early, there is Mike, waiting. Gotta love a shuttler who is where he says he is going to be!I learn that Eric Rudolph has been found in Murphy, NC, near the Nantahala Forest, where I always thought he was. Murphy is not that far from the Appalachian Trail, and for a while agents were out posing as backpackers, looking for the bombing suspect. The subject came up among hikers from time to time.I ask for the hiker news. Mule and Siesta dawdled, getting off to a very late start - 3 pm. Flamingo got off the Trail for a week and went to DC with friends. "I made him go to the hospital," said Mike. "Nothing was broken, but they said it was severe cellulitis, impact inflammation, and to stay off it for a week and call them at the first sign of blood poisoning."Well! Blood poisoning? From walking downhill? What strange things we are doing to our bodies.I return to the hostel after an orgy of fast food and re-meet Moosekiller, a southbounder who started from Harper's Ferry. He was here the night before, but got lost in the crowd. We spend a quiet evening watching CNN and packing our packs. Mike lets me clean the spam out of my regular e-mailbox. I get as far as April, then have to quit. There is too much spam.I also learn that Bumpkin's daughter is in hospital, and Anna/Mudbutt was helping her look for a shuttle from the Trail. I don't know the details, but Bumpkin was near Pearisburg, so I have my guesses who her shuttler was.Bumpkin, I'm sending you my best hopes. This is a sobering reminder that any number of things could pull us off the Trail at any time. Every day here is a gift. Even the wet ones.Mike also lets me look at his bird books, and there is my little masked singer - a common yellow-breasted warbler. Common or not, it was the first I'd seen. And it was a boy bird. The females did not have the mask.With only two visitors tonite, the hostel is quiet. I sleep the best sleep of the Trail so far on the comfortable air mattresses.The wind picks up in the night and blows hard. I DO hear that.