Date: 2014-05-14
From: Somewhere in Indiana

To: Waynesboro, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Day Zero: We have finally made it to Waynesboro, VA. We are staying in the same motel where we ended last year's hike, the Quality Inn. We are staying in one of their "hiker" rooms...the attached picture shows Spider outside the separate building that is set aside for hikers. Since the hikers are quite a social community, this works out well. Unfortunately we are here ahead of the "pack" so we have only seen one hiker so far. We hope to see more tomorrow at the free continental breakfast that is provided by the hotel..The day went pretty much as planned. We woke up at 7am as we entered Ashland, KY. During the night we transited Indiana and Ohio, then crossed the Ohio River..which was now paralleling. The train was running about an hour late. We had breakfast,! then spent the rest of the morning in our roomette watching Kentucky and West Virginia pass by our window...lots of coal operations in West Virginia!!.We found the Cardinal to be different in many ways from the Zephyr. The most obvious was that it was a single level train instead of a double decker like the Zephyr...and seeing some of the short tunnels we went through, we understand the need for a single-level train. Secondly there was no observation car with windows all the way up the side and on to the ceiling, on the Cardinal so that's why everyone stayed in their rooms. Next the Cardinal had much better food than the Zephyr. Each meal was hand-prepared by your server in a small kitchen near the dining area..and much to ET's joy, the meals included a lot more green vegetables. Lastly our roomette was slightly wider and taller than the roomette on the Zephyr. This allowed us to have our own toilet and sink, rather than sharing one "down the hall", as on the Zephyr. Both trains also had larger "suites" that would sit 4 and had a toilet, sink and shower...which we just saw in passing.By the time we finally reached the end of our train trip at Staunton, VA the train was over 2 hours late. We had plans to meet a section hiker for dinner at 5:30pm. We had seen her on the trail both of our previous years of hiking, trailname Rangely. Since it was already almost 4pm and we still needed to make our way to the next town over, Waynesboro, VA, we decided to try to take a taxi instead of utilizing the local bus system. Unfortunately there were no taxi's to be had. We did, however, see the Green Trolley that we needed to take us to the Staunton transportation "Hub" and hoped there will be taxis there. so we jumped on the trolley. It turned out that the "Hub" was a parking lot with 2 benches and no taxis. In 1/2 hour the 250 Connector bus showed up to take us to Waynesboro. By that time ,we knew we were going to be late for our dinner with Rangely. We sent emails and tried calling her to alert her to our situation, but to no avail. So we got on the 250 Connector.The 250 Connector was not a trip straight to Waynesboro. We were taken on a "tour" of the back streets of Staunton and Waynesboro. It took us an hour to travel the ~10 miles to Waynesboro. Next we took the Waynesboro Circulator bus to a stop 3 blocks from our hotel. We walked those 3 blocks, finally arriving at 5:50pm. Good thing Spider had researched all of this ahead of time.We never found or heard from Rangely...strange.At 7pm we walked to an Italian restaurant we had found when we were here a year ago. Once back we repacked our packs from train-mode to trail-mode. Spider contacted the Trail Angel who had volunteered to take us to the trail tomorrow and confiirmed a 7:45am pick up.Lastly, we checked the weather for tomorrow. We had heard on one of the buses that a "gully washer." Was on its way...and sure enough, flash flood warnings are posted for this area tomorrow...This hike is starting out like last year's!! We looked at the hourly forecast and saw that the rains aren't suppose to hit until early afternoon. Since we are heading out early and only have ~8 miles to hike, we think we can make it to our planned shelter before the brunt of the storm hits. Likewise we will be in the mountains, not the valleys where flooding is likely. Lastly, the storm is supposed to be mostly over by Friday morning...Hopefully the weatherman is right!!