Date: 2007-06-02
From: Sealth Site 3 miles past Partnership Shelter VA

To: Stealth Site 2 miles past I-81 VA
Miles today: 11.6

What a nite and day. I woke up @ 12:45 a.m. totally awake, and starving! LOL I so want spagheti and meatballs!! It was 2:00 a.m. beore I got back to sleep. Great nite, 60 degrees when I woke. I did sleep past my alarm and got up @ 6:30 instead of 6:00 though.Before I stepped off, I figured out my next leg, and made a list for supplies. I was headed for the truckstop @ I-81.The hike in was nice. A few climbs, but so far, Virginia's climbs just don't last that long, which is nice. I came around a bend, and a deer was on the trail 20 feet in front of me! It didn't budge, so I got this great pic of it. Really beautiful.There were rolling grassy fields today, small steep ups, flat dirt trail, and rocks, a bit of everything.A highlight of the day was hiking past the Settler's Museum @ VA 615. There's this awesome 1 room school house called the Lindamood Schoolhouse, that was used from 1894-1937. You can go inside, all the desks are there, woodstove, everything! I snapped a hilarious pic of me standing in the front with a switch in my hands! LOL Oh, and the list of "Punishment" for misbehaving was unreal. 2 lashes for calling someone a liar, 4 lashs if the girls went to the boys' play area, and get this, 10 lashes for misbehaving towards a girl! (nothing about misbehaving towards a boy..I guess girls were held to a higher expectation and socialized to act proper even back then huh?). Just a cool place.A hiker named Sled Dog (from Alaska) showed up. There are people you meet out here that you almost don't believe what they tell you, but this guy seemed genuine. He's on his 14th thru-hike! He does 30 mile days, and retired from the special forces 2 years ago. He told me when he came home from Iraq in 2005, it was then he found out his wife and children had all been killed in a car accident. I about started crying. He was carrying the ring his wife gave him, and he showed it to me. Then, something almost comical happened. He pulled out 2 pair of earrings (one was dice, the other horseshoes) and asked if I could put them in his ears for him because he couldn't do it without a miror. I'm like.....sure. So, here I am, standing on the porch of an 1894 1 room schoool house, on the AT putting some total stranger's earrings in his ears! LOL Does it get any weirder! LOL I then walked over to the Settler's Museum, which explained this whole place. Really cool, and Doris, a volunteer, gave me the tour and showed me all kinds of cool tools they used and found at this place, like a thing called a cabbage stamp.I finally tore myself away because my stomach was talking to me, and it knew I was headed to a truck stop!I get moving, and there's this HUGE black snake on the trail! A beauty, and I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I petted its tail! LOL It did startle when I touched it, but how cool it was to touch it!I finally got to the truckstop that is located off exit #54 on I-81, and I went inside to wash my hands. I went back out an asked another hiker how much they charged for a shower, and he told me $5.00. At that moment, a trucker named Mike walked by and heard they were charging us hikers that much and he couldn't believe it, so the most hilarious thing happened. Mike, the truckdriver, INSISTED on paying for my shower! LOL He thought it was a total rip that they charged like that. I told him he did not need to give me the money, but the guy would not take no for an answer! Hilarious huh? Either I REALLY needed that shower and he noticed when he walked by, or he was just a fellow idealist.So I go to use the restroom come back out for my pack and totally recognize the tall figure outside...it's freakin Gadget!! I run out and am like, "What are you guys doing here!?" Apparently, Scribe hurt her other ankle yesterday, and they got a ride to this motel by the truckstop this morning. I had caught up to them! They offered to let me shower in their room, so I used the $5.00 from Mike the trucker to do my laundry. The 3 of us walked up to The Barn, a restaurant of sorts. Lets just say my bill was more than theirs because I ate so much! A trip to the salad bar, 2 BLT sandwhiches, fries, and an ice cream sundae! mmmmmmmThey went back to their room, I showered, did laundry, resupplied and they were trying to talk me into staying, because it was 7:30 p.m., but I wanted to get back out there, so @ 8:00 p.m., I left, not having a clue how long I'd be hiking till I found a safe and suitable place to camp.I guess I'm getting ballsy, because I am so confident that I'll find a place to hang, I wasn't worried.I hiked through more rolling pastures, some dark woods (the sun was going down afterall) and past a stream. I got my headlamp out, and I wanted to be at least 2 miles from the road.Finally @ 8:50 p.m., I climbed over a stile into the dark woods from an open cow pasture and saw my home for the nite. I set up pretty quickly, but must say, I am surrounded and can see right over the fence about 1,000 lightening bugs just flickering away! It's just beautiful. I can still hear the traffic from I-81, but I'm a safe distance at least.So an odd yet wonderful day! Scribe's ankle is really swollen, and they've decided to hop aroud the trail and do sections they want, and come back south (when it gets later) and finish up. It was so great seeing them again, and THANKS AGAIN FOR THE USE OF YOUR ROOM'S FACILITIES!By the way, it's a very seedy place too! LOLWell, my first time to actually hike double digits AND dink around for 8 hrs resupplying, laundering, showering, and not stay in the place I resupplied. Now if I can keep up this momentum. It's about 10:00 p.m., and in the mid-60's. Nice nite.~Certain