Date: 2003-05-17
From: Trail Days

To: Trail Days
Miles today: 0.0

What a party !!!!! Traildays was 3 days and nights of some amazing fun , I have made 100s of new friends in a weekend and I was amazed to find so many people there had read my journal or had read my entries in the shelter register so I had no shortage of people to talk to.There is not any other sort of event or occasion on earth which would allow you to meet so many friendly people.I got picked up by Bluebearee who along with Jester drove me down to traildays.The drive went well except when it was my turn to drive , I have become used to driving automatic and had a few problems to say the least with the gear stick.We arrived in Damascus and set up camp at the "place" which is a local church run hostel for the hikers , well we didn't actually set up at the place but in the garden of the abandoned house next door and started a trend for everyone else who arrived to do the same.The main camp site was 0.5 miles out of town and that was the place all the night time activites went on around the camp fires , each camp fire had a different musical instrument being played by someone.The best was the guys who were playing the drums and had everyone dancing round the fire and one guy was playing the banjo and singing all the southern tunes.I met a couple of guys who were not far behind me and had been reading all my entries all the way up in the shelters so it was strange for me to be hanging out with strangers who maybe felt although they knew me because they had been reading my "if its nae scottish its crap" patter for 1000 odd miles. One guy approached me to tell me about he was sitting down to eat his dinner and was watching News channel 13 in north carolina and who appeared on the tv screen but me standing by the side of a road in a snow storm being interviewed by a reporter , I always wondered if I was on the news that snowy night while I was caught in a white-out up the top of Big Bald spending the night frezzing my ass off shelter in the shelter.It was crazy to hear some of the trail names people had and it was strange to be amongst so many people after spending the last few months in solitude , I was amazed because thier is a whole trail culture I knew nothing about and for me to have hiked 1550 miles and not be involved in it all kind of makes me think on how much stuff I have missed out on by not hiking with a bunch of other thru-hikers , but on the other hand I still wouldn't change a thing about my experience on the trail.On the saturday there was a parade through town where all the hikers marched down the main street with the Bag Pipers leading the way which turned into a massive water fight....it was good fun.Little Rebel you are the man !!!I met up with my old hiking buddy Bono from 1000 miles back and we had a few laughs up around Miss Janets tent where most of the fun was centred around , especially since she was handing out long island ice teas which was rocket fuel !!!! So after a few days of fun I was looking forward to take it easy for a few days down at Kincora with Bob Peoples to do some trail maintaince to put some time fixing up the trail I have walked on top of for some many miles.