Date: 2018-06-11
From: DickÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Dome/ Whiskey Hollow Shelter

To: Blackburn AT Center 
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Day 68-  We slept so well. The sound of the rain all night. No evidence of mice scurrying around us. It¢s hard getting up and out when it¢s raining. It¢s really hard putting wet socks and shoes on. The forecast was not looking good for today so we told Wings to just go ahead to the Bears Den Hostel; it probably wouldn¢t be too fun for him to have to wait up for us in the rain. So that meant it was just Broken Seal and I.We knew we had the infamous roller coaster coming up which is 13 miles of tightly packed ascents and descents so we decided today would be an audiobook day. We chose our next novel which is on North Korea to entertain us through the miles. Luckily, it wasn¢t actually raining too hard, it was more of a mist, but of course the plants still got us soaking wet. I liked the sign that welcomed us to the roller coaster telling us to ¢enjoy the ride¢! And what a ride it was! It was pretty rocky which helped keep us from going too fast on uphills and also kept us from flying on the townhouse. The roller coaster was full of surprises. The first of which was lovely trail magic by parents visiting their kids who were thruhiking. Hot dogs, Gatorade, cookies, fruit; it was much needed and went down easily even after we had just had our own lunch. The second moment was crossing the thousand mile marker!! Woo hoo! One thousand miles. While this isn¢t the first time I¢ve walked 1000 miles, it¢s definitely the first time Broken Seal has. I think at first he was at a loss for words still processing his amazing accomplishment. I couldn¢t get much out of him other than ¢this is pretty awesome¢ and ¢it¢s super cool¢. As the accomplishment really set in, we had a great conversation about what it meant to walk 1000 miles to us, what it meant for the rest of our hike, and the implications that could be on the future. Once you have walked 1000 miles, other great notions can seem much more feasible. One of the things I really liked that Broken Seal said more specific to our thruhike is that crossing 1000 miles, and especially once we¢ve hit the unofficial (Harpers Ferry) and official halfway point, will be like a seesaw. So far, we have focused all of our energy on making it here and now the seesaw has tipped towards the other direction and we¢re going to be working towards the end. Psychologically, it will be really interesting to see how we frame our hike going forward. Understandably, we are absolutely relieved that we are soon going to be done with Virginia, which alone is 25% of the whole thruhike. Now that the mileage in the northern states are significantly shorter, I think that will help in feeling like we are constantly chipping away at and getting closer to Katahdin. We called our parents because we were excited and I think they were happy to share that moment with us.We still had some miles to go and as we approach the Bear¢s Den Hostel, my legs started feeling the effects of the roller coaster. We didn¢t get there until around 4:00. Wings had been there since 1:30 just to give you a frame of reference on how fast he is. Seemed like a really cool place but we decided pretty quickly it was not where we wanted to stay for the night. We decided we wanted to push 7 more miles to the Blackburn AT Center. After the nice break at Bears Den, I felt like I had it in me to finish the ride and then coast to Blackburn. I told Wings and Broken Seal to go ahead. Before we split it off, we had one final encounter with a hiker who thought that Broken Seal and I were siblings. It¢s becoming a common occurrence and we think it¢s pretty weird.This was the first time on the trail I¢ve hiked late making it to Blackburn just before 8 PM. I secured a sleeping spot on a nice bench within their screened porch. The Blackburn AT Center is somewhere we¢ve been told to go to since before the trail because Broken Seal¢s Mom is close to Ruth Blackburn¢s granddaughter. We took photos and the caretaker gave us a tour around the property. I was exhausted though and I think Broken Seal was too even though he kept good face by staying up to learn more about the place for his mom¢s friend. We demolished the final dinner foods in our bag and all curled up in our appropriate spots scattered across the porch.