Date: 2004-05-15
From: trail days at damascus, va

To: trail days/damascus,va
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

5-15-04   saturday0 miles todaytrail days/damascus, vai got up early and went for a walk.i headed to town from tent city and found some good coffee at the side track cafe and updated my journal at one of their computers. i found liteshoe's car and drove back to tent city. "rainbow slick" came over to our tent and "dr. dolittle" and "jan liteshoe" and i went to breakfast. we spent the day going through the vendor's tents and checking out all the new gear and running into more trail friends. the morning went by quick and at 2pm we went by "dots"and got into the hiker parade that went on for about 3/4 of a mile through downtown damascus,va. right from the start we were being attacked by people with water balloons and water guns. if you were careful and caught incoming water balloons, you could catch them and return the fire. you lined up in the area for the year you hiked the trail and i decided to line up with the 2004 "wanna be" thru hikers. there were some water guns that i saw that were up to 5' long and they could put out a small house fire. some people just simply drug out water hoses and sprayed the hikers and one girl kept putting money in the car wash and spraying the hikers from there. it only drew more fire at her from the hikers. "john galt" would run around and sneak up on little kids when they weren't looking and soak them. "lwop" got slammed and his eye glasses ended up in the road in front of me. "miss janet"thought i was being neglected and soaked me with friendly fire. she was carrying 3 water guns and all that did was drew more attention to her and she was soaking wet. "liteshoe" and i went to "sicilies" and ordered a calzone and a couple of cokes and when we went to pay, the waitress said our bill had already been payed. we couldn't figure out who did it, but thank you very much!! "spur" brought over a cd for me that "takoma ted" had recorded and gave it to me to replace and earlier copy i had bought. i saw "hippie longstockings" standing near the end of the parade and i took a trash can half filled with water and dumped it on her head. hey, i thought she neede a shower. big mistake, she is an evil person and i know the payback will be worse.....much worse. "liteshoe" and i got back to the tent and took a nap, hoping to be able to stay up later tonight. it started raining and i sleep really well in my tent when it's raining outside.i didn't find out just how hard it rained until i got up later. a tent about 15' away from mine was full of water. it had been set up in a lower spot and it flooded. "rainbow slick" said he saw one tent collapse and another tent blow away. we went up to the fire ring later and listened to some hikerss playing the bongo drums while other hikers were dancing around the fire ring in the mud. i talked to "joe mitchell" and "candy" from four pines hostel in catawba,va for a while until it started raining again and they left for a drier place. "john galt" said he was hungry, so we went to the side track cafe and "liteshoe" and i had milkshakes while "john galt" and "dr. doolitle" started drinking beer. "footslogger" and "jersey" joined us until we left there about 1 1/2 hours later. i ended up getting to bed a little before midnight and i heard "john galt" and a very giggly "dr. doolitle" come in to their tent next to mine at almost 3am.