Date: 2004-04-17
From: fatman squeeze

To: dickey gap (troutdale VA) 
Miles today: 19.8

today was interesting. it started off with a great sunrise on a windy field. we all slept under the stars last night and peered out of our sleeping bags, cameras in hand, recording the beautiful colors the morning had brought us. just as quickly as we propped up from our slumber, the 10 mph, 40 degree wind chased us back into our little cocoons. as the sun rose in the sky we gained 5 degrees. still no one stirred. nature was calling me and i braved the morning air... sort of. i unzipped the bottom of my sleeping bag and slipped my feet into my waldies. grabbing the tail end of the bag to keep it out of the dried horse droppings, i hobbled about to a good pee spot. snickers erupted from my fellow hikers. they said i looked like some sort of green gumby stumbling about the grassy field. well, once i was up and moving, going back to bed seemed futile. i donned my wind pants, jacket, and hat and headed straight for my food bag. Mmmmm -- a bear claw danish and an apple danish... thoroughly satisfying and a whopping 900 calories. now that's breakfast!it's fun to read the wrappers on these things. some genius figured out that i'm getting x billion milligrams of saturated fat... and i guess that's supposed to clog my arteries or something? i know i got a lot of danishes ahead of me because my resting BP in hot springs was 100/60. i got packed up before everyone and was about to leave camp when 4-5 wild ponies were coming our way. one of them walked up to me and let me run my fingers through its hair. after seeing this, heads and bodies popped out of sleeping bags in seconds. they who didn't want to move because it was too cold now found the fire necessary to approach these gentle beasts, fire off a ton of pictures, and give offerings of kellogg's corn pops.the ponies were great until they decided to walk all over our camp. fitz tried to get one to not walk on his sleeping bag, but it would have none of that... these aren't dogs... they do what they want. i already had my stuff packed so i got to be amused at my compatriots trying to steer the ponies away from their gear.the next highlight of the day was laying in the sun after our first 6 miles of hiking. it was hot today, high 60's maybe. (that's hot for hiking) laying in the sun lets us dry our packs and shirts and lets us even out our tans. :-) but, there's no use in that. we got t-shirt, shorts, and sock tans. they seem pretty permanent and dorky looking. ah, thru-hiking.some of us needed to resupply and get fuel at troutdale but we had a problem. we would get to troutdale tomorrow (sunday) and the little store isn't open on sundays. hippie's bf to the rescue. tripod drove us to town today around 3:30. we got our groceries and also got some really really good bacon double cheeseburgers. did i mention how good they were? while we were stuffing our faces, hippie changed plans for the afternoon. she suggested we have tripod slack us the next 10 miles and we'll find a place to camp near the road. we all said ok, since it will lessen the miles to partnership shelter tomorrow.so off we go. 10 miles starting at 5:45. we finished at 8:00pm with about 20 minutes of light left in the sky. oh, and no flat spots to camp on. in a jam now, we whip out the maps and look at our options. partnership shelter is .1 off the road we're on. it is tomorrow's destination, but what the heck? tripod drove 10 miles up the road and dropped us off. it was a funny feeling showing up there even though we didn't hike there. tomorrow we will go back to the road and hike back here for the night. crazy ain't it?