Date: 2005-05-12
From: Partnership Shelter

To: Crawfish Valley
Miles today: 17.9

We got a 6:30 start this morning. It seems like it is starting to get lighter, already, faster. I guess there must have been some problems inside the shelter last night.   I woke up this morning and there was one guy who decided to pull out of the shelter and Cowboy Camp and was laying outside in the middle of the grass. Also, at 2:00 in the morning, Tree Trunks decided to pack up and leave. There were people snoring in there. I heard that the upstairs bunks in this shelter (Partnership Shelter) were unbearably hot and stuffy. I was glad that I took the opportunity to sleep outside under the perfect stars on a perfect night. Our destination this morning was the Relax Inn Hotel in Atkins, Virginia. I had a mail drop at the Relax Inn, and our original intention was to stay there overnight. Seeing how we lost time yesterday, and only made ten miles because we went into Damascus we decided to go in there; spent a few hours; eat; get my mail drop; and then leave again. So, we got up extra early and started to go because we were trying to make breakfast and get lunch there. Unfortunately, we took a little detour. We missed a blaze somewhere along the way. We ended up walking along this horse path for probably fifteen minutes, and had to walk fifteen minutes back. Regardless, we still pulled into the truckstop at the road there at Atkins about 10:45. Too late for breakfast at Rhonda¢s Restaurant, but we went ahead and ordered lunch. I had this really crappy hot roast beef sandwich which was just terrible. It had a single slice of thin, dried out roast beef. I had onion rings, which were okay. I went ahead and ate it. Then I went over to the Shell gas station that has a Dairy Queen in it. I sat down and had some ice cream. Then I left OC1 there to do his shopping at the Shell, while I went down to the Relax Inn to pick up my mail drop.   I explained to the guy that I wasn¢t going to stay there; that I just wanted to pick up my mail drop. He charged me a dollar for holding the box, which was just fine with me. That was worth it. I took my box back to the Shell gas station. I sat down outside on the concrete tables and arranged my food; had a Pepsi; just kind of hung around there. I went down to the other gas station, which was an Exxon that is a truckstop. I picked up some other stuff there, and by the time we got all settled and ready to go it was 1:30. We started walking out of town under I 81. I realized that I had forgotten something; that I had also gotten the stay for my pack sent to the Relax Inn. So, I had to turn around and go back. I told OC1 to go ahead and I would meet him at the shelter. That is what I did. I went back; got my stay; and hauled ass to the Davis Pass Shelter where we met up around 3:30. We hung out there for a few minutes and decided that we were going to walk all the way down to Crawfish Valley. We were going to camp down there, just to make a few extra miles. It took us til 5:00 to get there. There were some pretty unexpected nasty uphills. The maps here are really all screwed up. They really don¢t show what¢s going on in this section. I noticed that today and I noticed that yesterday, too. There was stuff in there that was not supposed to be in there. But anyway, we got here about 5:00. There¢s a nice little creek here. We set up our camp (our tents and stuff) and started cooking. Some section hikers walked in here and we talked to them a little bit. They moved on a little bit further down the way and set up their stuff out of sight of us. Hotflash also walked in here about 6:00. We sat here talking about how everyone is going to get screwed because both OC1 and HotFlash have mail drops in Bland, Virginia which is 38 miles away. This is Thursday, and the Post Office closes on Saturday at 11:00. 38 miles is a lot of miles to do in one day and a short morning. So, they were trying to figure that out. They¢re probably just going to call tomorrow and try to get the Post Office to bump the stuff ahead.It¢s late at night. The bugs are eating me alive, so I¢ve got to stop here and get into bed. Goodnight.