Date: 2017-05-08
From: Damascus

To: Damascus
Miles today: 0.0

Second zero day!We grabbed breakfast at Mojo's before Classy, I Tarzan, Bird, Pigasis, and Goose headed over to the outfitter. In addition to the AT, the Virgina Creeper trail also runs through Damascus and is a very popular bike route. It's a rails-to-trail conversion, so the terrain is very tame and scenic. We got our bikes and hopped in the van for the shuttle to the top (it's our day off... we are not doing anything that involves going up a hill).At the top we hopped onto the trail at the old Whitetop train station and started riding. As we started the air and the wind generated by the movement of the bike had a bite to it, but the sun went a long way towards dispelling it. The trail was great... a peddle or two let us coast for minutes at a time. We stopped at a playground we found along the way so that Bird and Pig could swing and the rest of us took a short nap in the sun while they played. Tarzan, Classy, and I enjoyed a 6in apple pie that someone had left in the hiker box (best hiker box find yet... Who leaves a whole, unopened pie?!?!) as a snack. After a while we all remounted our bikes but the rest of the group outpaced Classy and I when we stopped to read the informational signs. Not long after the start of the trail it started paralleling a river, so we also stopped to admire some the prettier waterfalls. The water was crystal clear and cascaded over the ledges into large pools cut into the stone. Mid summer these would be ideal swimming holes... Perhaps another adventure.We coasted down the 18mi of creeper back to Damascus over a couple hours, meeting the AT 3 times along the route and getting a preview of what we'd be hiking. We met back up with Lookout (who hadn't come because he'd strained a muscle yesterday) and grabbed lunch at Mojo's. This being our 3rd time there, they had learned my name... probably means it's time to move on.Classy and I headed over to the library so that she could take care of some digital business while I did a bit of research on trail days, a huge hiker festival that we'd be back to Damascus for in about 2 weeks. After that we stopped by Food Lion and I bought my resupply (I only spent $5 on a pack of tortillas and a box of granola bars for my next 5 days of food... the rest came from the hiker box) and at picked up some things to make dinner back at Larry's.On our way back to the hostel we stopped by one of the outfitter's and ran into LeftFoot, a section hiker who had had to get off trail in Hot Springs to go graduate from medical school. She had driven down for the weekend to hang out, so it was really cool and unexpected to see her.Classy and I headed back to the hostel to make some dinner. It's not often we have access to a food store and a kitchen and we had already eaten at Bobo's 3 times (which we felt was enough), so we (and by that I mean entirely Classy) decided to make something a bit fancy. I assisted her in making bruschetta with a lentle/bean/olive salad side. So good :) We ended up with extra, so Larry and LeftFoot (who stopped by) helped polish it off for us.After dinner I chatted with Kramers, a triple crowner (ie, he's hiked the AT, PCT, and CDT) who was at the hostel as a bike packer on route 76, which stretches from the east coast to the west coast of the US. He showed us his rig... he's got his bike outfitted to carry his full camping gear and each day rides ~60mi along the route and either stays in a hostel, hotel, or camps. It's going to take him ~2.5mo to make it across the country... pretty cool way to see the country after having seen as much as he has on the trails.We hung out for the rest of the night around the campfire and then headed to bed.