Date: 2008-06-05
From: Damascus, VA

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

I had taken a muscle relaxer before bed to help me get to sleep with my leg hurting, so the next morning I slept like the dead. Even through Conductor's knocking on my door to try and take me to breakfast. I finally got up around 9 and had some excellent breakfast from Suzanne - pecan waffles with bacon and eggs. Conductor had even left me his truck, so that I could run errands around town and not have to walk. I drove down to the outfitters to pick up my bounce both and resupply box. It felt pretty weird driving, and I looked down to find myself driving almost 15mph under the speed limit. Travelling life really slows down when you walk everywhere. I ran into Needles at the outfitters and we walked to the espresso bar/flyfishing shop to get some coffee. This was the first town to have an espresso place, so my iced latte was like crack. I gave Needles a lift to the grocery store to buy a sandwich. We still stand in awe as we walk through the automatic doors and are greeted by every food we have dreamt of on the trail. It's a good day when you can equate walking into a supermarket with going to Toys R Us as a 5 year old. I dropped Needles back off in the downtown area, and went back to Suzanne's to start the new book I had purchased from the outfitters - Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. You hear a lot about this book on the trail, some people hate it, some people love it, and some people are even out here walking because of it. So I cracked it open and began to read. I had never read anything by Bryson before, but now I wish that I had. He writes the scenes and people so comically, yet it maintains the adventure throughout. It's actually kind of weird reading this book. You can relate to all of the expriences and places he talks of because you were literally just there. And he is really able to capture the essence of everyday life on the trail - both good and bad. While reading, Triforce walked by and picked me up to go eat lunch at Subway. My footlong Italian sub was gone in seconds. We went next door to Mojoe's coffee bar got some coffee. It was a really cool coffee shop, with an actual bar to sit at next to the counter. We talked to the barista girl for a while, she used to work as a river guide at the NOC, so talked about that for a while. On our way back towards downtown, we stopped to pick up some flowers for Tori, since she was letting us have a little party at their house tonight. I then left to go help Conductor set up some of the stuff for that night. Mule showed up in town about that time, and left for The Place hostel to get cleaned up and do some laundry. Lone Wolf then showed up at Conductors and we sat around and had a beer. He is a big name in the local hiker scene and has thru hiked the trail 5 times! (4 northbound and 1 southbound) Everyone started showing up to Conductors around 6 and we had some beer and burgers and had a good time. Everyone was there, Rewind, Needles, Cornelius, Dr. Z, Goliath (now Big Brown), Mule, Triforce, Homeward Bound, Smiley, and several others. About 10 we decided to move the party to Dot's, the (only) local watering hole. We packed it out, and had a good time drinking mini pitchers until we were thrown out at closing time. There were 3 section hikers who were staying at the Hikers Inn with me, so we all somehow stumbled back there on the Virginia Creeper Trail that runs through town, devoured a box of Oreos, and then went to sleep.