Date: 2010-05-28
From: Priest Shelter

To: Blue Ridge Parkway Mile 9.6
Miles today: 20.3

Woke up with my head on my boot and a beard full of smelly feet at 6:30am. Packed up but stayed in the tent to keep warm. Cold out in the wind. Spilled my tea. Cereal from Glasgow is worthless. Taste like cardboard. No energy from it at all. Love these Crasins though! Put on my rain jacket and broke camp at 7:00am. Met Eddy at the shelter. The 4am Boys, aka Old Farts, were here and left already. got water and hit the trail. Female grouse told me to stay away from her young. She was cruising around the grass near the trail. Decent view from the Priest overlook. Large white clouds lining the valleys. Rhododendrons are blooming heavily here. Big pink and purple flowers smell so fresh and new compared to me. I haven't showered since Pearisburg! Lish is gonna love it! Last time I was clean and looking like a tourist. This time I'm going to be dirty, smelly and looking like a supertramp!At this point...I was writing in my tent at Blue Ridge Parkway campsite. Lish started calling, "SKIPPY!" and I left with her for Waynesboro. I took the Memorial day weekend off after going through quite the lightening storm with Tree. We were pinned down just after 3 ridges overlook on the BRPW. The climb up 3 ridges was a bitch, but the views afterwords made it worth every drop of water that poured from my brow. We saw a Diamond Back Rattlesnake! More to this story later. Back on the trail....And here's Lish! My side of the story for May 28th. I drive up from Durham in the worst pouring rain and lightning I've seen all year! I can't imagine what Skippy and the hikers are doing out there in this, but it must be an adventure. I make it to the Dripping Rock pull-off before dark. Some day hikers are eating there and tell me there's some hikers in tents up the hill. I climb up, and start seeing some tents. Then the familiar silver cocoon tent! I call out "Skippy!" and there he is! He's wearing his only dry cloths, his long john top and bottoms, both black. He looks like a ninja. His ninja outfit. We drive into town and find the YMCA. They let us in and Skippy showers for the first time in about 12 days! That must feel good. The YMCA folks are really friendly. Some church people left little goodie bags with toiletries and candy and stuff for the hikers. And there's a pool! We set up the tent in the camping area near the river. It's next to what looks like a drainage pond, but it actually has little springs in it, and artesian well, my dad always called it. (This is what wikipeida says: "An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater that will flow upward through a well, called an artesian well, without the need for pumping. Water may even reach the ground surface if the natural pressure is high enough, in which case the well is called a flowing artesian well" Dad was right!) There's a duck family there, too. 7 babies. We're the only one camped out here tonight. Most hikers are in the hostel at the church. Nice to be all alone with the stars. Except for a little yippie dog that followed us over and tried for maybe 1/2 and hour to tell us to leave. Then he gave up, thankfully. We made a late night (midnight?) run to the Kroger for some milk. I can't remember if we got anything other than that! Slept pretty good, but the roots were rough! I'm getting soft, and wasn't as comfortable without my double sleeping mats. Oh my, what does this mean about me?