Date: 2005-05-20
From: Niday Shelter

To: Catawba, Va
Miles today: 0.0

I am yellow blazing right now. I have no choice at this point. Last night was the worst night I have had on the Trail so far. I was laying in my hammock peacefully, listening to the thunder and the rain. It was raining hard as hell. Suddenly KACHING! I was half asleep and getting drenched! Apparently, what had happened was, some water had built up on top of the tarp enough to start a puddle and make a depression. The weight eventually snapped one of the plastic rings that tenses the top of the tarp to the hammock, and it went shooting off into the woods like a rubber band.In the meantime, I had lightning flashing down all around me. It's raining full blast, within seconds I was wet.   The hammock, on the inside, within 5 seconds was like a bucket holding water; which means my down sleeping bag, my down jacket, which I had been using as a pillow, the book I had been reading, and myself, were completely under water.I got out of the hammock in the pouring f**king rain and tried to re-attach the hammock's fly with no success. I was just running around like a f**king nut! I finally just draped it over the hammock, which meant that it had sealed completely, like a baggie. No air flow whatsoever. I got back inside, drained the water out and took off all the clothes I had on and got into my wet sleeping bag. I had to keep slapping the tarp to keep more water from pooling up and doing further damage; so every 5 minutes from 11:30 to 1:30, I'd reach up and push up on the tarp to drain the water off of it.My down sleeping bag has no thermal insulation at all. Luckily, it was about 60 degrees, or else I would have been in serious trouble. At 1:30, it stopped raining long enough for me to jump out and run to the shelter where my pack was. I grabbed my towel and started the long process of drying everything out. I dried as much of the sleeping bag as I could, squeezing the water from it. I dried the inside of the tarp, the inside of the hammock. I changed my clothes.I have got to get into town today. I can't sleep tonight in what I have, I'll freeze to death.There will be no other opportunity to dry out my gear. The only thing I can do is get to town and try to use a washer and dryer somewhere. That's where I'm headed right now. I'm going to call it a zero day today. Earlier, a real nice man named Bill Brown picked me up in his truck. He took me right to the post office in Catawba. He told me that that was the most likely place for me to find someplace to dry my stuff out. He dropped me off at the store near the post office. I walked in, talked to the lady at the store, and told her what had happened to me and how all my things were soaked. She told me I could go behind the store and hang a clothesline back there and let my things dry out.Luckily, it was a very windy and sunny day. I spent quite a bit of time trying to keep the clothes on the line. I then began multi-tasking. I told OC1 and Albert that I would try to meet them at the first store, 16.6 Trail miles away, by 1:30. So, as soon as I got everything hung up by 9:00 I ran to the post office across the street. I got my 4 boxes and ran back to where my clothes were. I spent from then until about 12:45 alternating between trying to organize my mail and turning the clothes and gear over to get everything good and dry. I had 4 packages here. One was a package with some socks from my truck that I had asked Bob to send me. Another was a package some blue bubble wrap to replace the stuff I lost; it's what I sit on and I insulate my water with to keep it from getting hot in the summer. The 3rd box is my re-supply box, a standard box with food for the next 4-5 days. The last box is my bump box which I had sent from my last stop 4 days back -WISELY- I might add, thinking that I might not like the hammock, or I might have a problem with it and I might want to switch back to the tent pretty quickly. I'll tell you, after my experience with the hammock last night, I'm going right back to my Hubba tent and sending the hammock right back home. I'm not going to mess with it again this time. It left a real bad taste in my mouth. It reminded me of the time I had bad scallops and it took me 10 years to eat them again. It's going to be a while before I use a hammock again, I was really traumatized last night.By 12:45 I had gotten everything dry, I got my bump box repacked, and another box to send home with a bunch of stuff I felt I didn't need anymore. I sat and waited for the post office to open at 1:00. I was out of the post office by 1:10.I hauled ass down the road with my thumb out, unluckily not getting a ride. I still made 3 miles in 40 minutes down to the other grocery store where I was supposed to meet the guys. They were not there.I hung around the store and waited until about 3 o'clock, and decided to go down 1/2 mile to the parking lot where Dragon's Tooth is commonly gotten from and ran a mile up the Trail. I figured maybe I could catch them there. No luck. So I ran 1/2 mile back up to the grocery store, they still had not checked in there. So, I walked an additional 4/10's of a mile up to 624 to meet them at that Trail head. When I walked up there, there was a mini van with a guy there who told me his name was Zap Man. He told me he had through hiked in 2003 and was currently, together with his wife, biking cross country. This is their second time doing this. They did it in 2002 as well.They had rented a mini van specifically to stop at the Trail head and take hikers to the Homeplace Restaurant. It was their version of Trail Magic. They said they had missed it in 2003 and, they didn't want anyone else to miss it. I told them what was going on with OC1 and they said they would wait there until 4 o'clock for him, until the restaurant would be opening. In the meantime, two other hikers had come out of the woods there. They were Chef Boy Ardee and LoJack. LoJack got his name because his mom made him wear an electronic locator in the beginning of the Trail, which was just a riot.Zap Man offered them a ride, but they elected to walk the additional 5 miles to get to the other exit and then go back to the restaurant. We waited until 4 o'clock then Zap Man, his wife, and I rode up to the Homeplace restaurant, which is reputed to be the best restaurant on the Appalachian Trail. I always wondered how someone could justify that, but having eaten there, it's hard to argue with it. It is a pretty damned good place. The front of the place looks like a great, big Southern style mansion. It's a white house with a wrap around porch and swings. On the inside, all the rooms are decorated like a Southern style house. It was much larger on the inside than it appeared to be on the outside. It has 3 large gazebos scattered around the outside. I would say 60 acres of fenced off fields with cow pastures with some animals out there. It was a really cute place. The food was impeccable. It was Southern Family Style Cooking. This was no 'grits and bacon' kind of place. You walk in there, and there were all these large, well dressed families, eating properly. The food was just excellent. It was 'all you can eat' but they brought you a plateful at a time of beef, chicken and creamed peas. Everything was impeccably tasty with a Southern gentility to it, very upper class. I had heard on the Trail that you were allowed to camp around the restaurant. I asked the owner about it. He told me to sleep in one of the gazebos. I found it hard to believe that they would allow a dirty hiker like me to sleep like a homeless person inside one of their gazebos in this classy place. I actually went inside a little later and asked him to clarify. I told him I didn't want to do anything wrong. He laughed. So, I get to sleep in a gazebo tonight.Still smelly, but at least I'm dry. Lately, I've been getting body odors that I've never had before. I can't stand my own smell. Maybe it's all the olive oil I have in my diet. It could be something like that. Zap Man said, when we were discussing this, "you dont even hold a candle to Chef Boy Ardee and LoJack, they are blowing everyone away." In fact, those 2 just walked in a short time ago, about 7:30, while I was in the gazebo going through my stuff. They are here to eat dinner. Chef Boy Ardee and I had to convince LoJack NOT to take his shoes off and put his sandals on. I can't wait to get to Daleville and take my shower. I've got some tough choices to make. I think I'm going to end up skipping the 16.6 miles that I missed today so that I can stay walking with OC1 and Albert. I hate to do that. I hate doing the yellow blazing thing after I've promised myself I wouldn't. But, at this point, under the circumstances, I'm going to break yet another rule.Days like this seem like they last forever. This morning seems like it was a week ago.