Date: 2016-05-28
From: Marion, VA

To: Crawfish Trail Camp
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: scattered clouds

5/28Friday we hiked from the Trimpi Shelter to the Mt. Rodgers visitor center. The last few miles were done in the pouring rain. I was hiking alone and finally found reception. My neighbor from Houston texted me that she heard it was going to rain up here. From the time I responded "clear skies here" via text it only took 10 minutes for the skies to darken and rain to fall.I marathoned it to the visitor center with Mayfly, the last free shuttle to Marion was scheduled to leave at 2:30 and out catching it would mean hauling ass. I came flying out of the trail and up to the visitor center looking like a mad man wearing a rain kilt. There was a group of young school kids at the visitor center and they all were looking at me like I was... Well, really dirty and wearing a kilt. The teacher quickly herded to kids onto the school bus and away from the small group of hikers awaiting the shuttle.The town of Marion is 6 miles from the heady and they will drop you off wherever you want to go. In my case I was up to be overwhelmed so I jumped off at Walmart. Now here is the interesting part of thru-hiking....I have never been to Marion before, but that does not matter, as a hiker you just bump into other hikers. In this case it was Special K's mom (Special K is back a day at the 500 mile marker). Another thing is the locals either love hikers and want to help them or hate them and wants them to get the hell out of town as several people asked me if I needed a ride back to the trail.... Of course this was before I had resupplied.As fate would have it I would end up getting caught in the town vortex and not get out of there until the morning. I basically gave up some "banked" miles from the big 26 mile day as the haul from Trimpi to where the shuttle picked me up was only 10 miles. In the morning I was able to catch a ride with two locals i met at McDonald's. Alastair was also lucky enough to get a ride with me and we hit the trail casually hiking and chatting for the first 4 miles.After the first 4 miles Alastair and I became separated and I continued on alone and with a section joker couple for a period (they are doing a good sized chunk, but I can not remember their names).My goal was to punch out 12 miles to the small town of Atkins as I was told there was a place called "the Barn" the served good hamburgers. The 12 miles was relatively easy and even carried me through some neat fields and to an old school building the was built in 1894. In the old school was trail magic including cold cokes, celery, toothbrushes, etc.When I finally made it to Atkins I discovered a large group of hikers that got an early start from the Partnership Shelter (located by the Mt. Rodgers visitor center) only to be trapped by the Barn and what appeared to be at least two 12 packs of PBRs. Bear Bait, Gaio, Feather, Free Fall, Haiku, Jack Rabbit, Cake and several others were hanging out and enjoying the beautiful day and the PBRs. They were even kind enough to offer one or three to me. After they left I stayed and crushed a Philly Cheesesteak and then set out to complete my goal of 18 miles. The second part of today's hike was more challenging and the weight of my loaded down back started to feel heavy (having not eaten hardly anything for to the trail magic and the Barn). By 7:45 I made it to the campsite that I am in now. The group that was at the Barn is all here and it's a fairly large group of tents. Because everyone did 18 miles and several spent a portion of the day drinking beer, it was lights out soon after dark.