Date: 2007-05-28
From: Lewis Mountain Campground

To: Big Meadows Lodge
Miles today: 8.7

A short day today to stop here at the lodge for the night. Last night just at dark it started raining again but not nearly as hard as it rained earlier. I think I was asleep before it even stopped. This morning Symbol decided to try to hitch to Front Royal where his van is parked and bring it here so we can all slack-pack. He has trouble carrying a heavy pack and hiking can be less tiresome with a lighter pack. Someone would drop the other at a trailhead along Skyline Drive and drive to another trailhead and when meeting along the trail pass the car key to the other so that person could drive back up the trail to pick the other one up. It would let us stay in a campground where there is a Wayside, shower, and laundry each evening. Symbol is from Texas and is 50 years old but has had part of his lung removed because of lung cancer and had chemotherapy. So understandably he has more trouble with carrying a heavy pack. He was a respiratory therapist and never smoked so the cancer he had was a non-smokers cancer. Toto and I have hiked from Lewis Mountain Campground to the lodge in just under 4 hours----in time for lunch. Symbol has not made it back here so he may have had a hard time getting a hitch back to Front Royal. He has our phone numbers but we have not heard from him. We are sharing a room with him here at the lodge tonight.We are sitting on the back deck of the lodge in the sun with lots of clouds around. Toto says it is going to storm sometime today. Looking out over the Shenandoah Valley it is very hazy--just barely able to make out the farms and small towns below. The trail today was not too bad. The storm last night washed out the trail pretty bad, washing leaves, pine needles, sticks, and small rocks down the trail into thick piles. It must have been nasty yesterday hiking through the stream running down the trail. There was a rock scramble we could have chosen to hike over on a blue-blazed trail. Can you guess what we chose? Definitely not the rock scramble!! There were enough rocks on the A.T. only I imagine the ones we walked on were much smaller. It is now almost 4PM and we still have not heard from Symbol. Is he going to show up or was he planning to leave us wondering what happened to him? He seemed like an honest person but now looking back and thinking about things he did say when he left to go to the road to hitch a ride he said he didn't get our picture. I told him we would see him again---wouldn't we? Well, sure, I'm not one of these 20 somethings or something to that effect. Then he also said it was too bad he couldn't take our packs so we wouldn't have to carry them and then said we probably could leave our packs there at the campground. Anyway, we got a room with 2 beds so we could share the price of the room, which is a bit pricier than a regular motel room. But that is not so much the problem as it is not knowing if he is OK (was he able to hitch a ride and if so did something happen) or did he intend to never see us again. Anyway, I hope he is OK and that he shows up because I think he is a trustworthy person and that he has a very good reason why he has not shown up. He took our phone numbers before he left. It is 9:15PM now and I am happy to say that Symbol showed up at about 4:30. We were sitting out in front of the lodge watching for him when he drove up. To make a long story short he got 3 hitches to get him up to Front Royal with waits in between. While in town to pick up his van he did his laundry and stopped to pick up some supplies. He hadn't called to tell us anything because he could not get a signal.So when Toto and I got our laundry done we all went to the Wayside to eat but they were closed at 5:30, just at the time the dining room here opened. They had that fixed, we think, so people had nowhere else to eat but here at the lodge and it is an expensive place to eat.   Well, we are all tired so are going to get some sleep. The plan for tomorrow is 17 miles slack-packing. Toto and I come south from Thornton Gap and Symbol is starting here and going north to the gap. Then we will take a camping spot here. Oh, we did have a thunderstorm that lasted for a short while around 4PM. It seems to be the time of day for them recently. Hopefully we will be about through hiking by then tomorrow. Life is Great!Dorothy & Toto