Date: 2008-05-26
From: Campsite mile 440

To: VA 635 mile 645.7
Miles today: 205.7

I haven't updated in awhile. It is very difficult to find the time when in town to do daily updates. Since I just mailed home my full journal I won't have daily updates for these last 20 days. I will try to do daily updates after this, but no promises!!A couple weeks ago I hit the border of North Carolina and Virginia, arriving in Damascus, VA. Damascus seems like the 1/4 way marker, even though it is closer to a fifth mileage-wise. It felt pretty great to arrive in town. I spent three nights and two zero days in Damascus with Hot Tang, Uff-dah, and Mzungu. Damascus was a lot of fun the first time around. I discovered Damascus Eats! which is a little restaurant with AMAZING cinnamon rolls that had orange frosting. I could've eaten about a million of them and would've had they not run out. Another amazing thing about Damascus is this hole in the wall bar, Dot's, where all the thru-hikers hung out at night. It is a cool place to run into other hikers, former hikers, and some locals. The jukebox had some interesting music such as hillbilly-mountain-music covers of famous songs. I couldn't help but dance to the music. I got to try out the mountain dance I learned in Franklin, NC. At one point we had 10 people dancing to these odd songs. Ever heard Fat Bottom Girls played on a fiddle? Well, I have!Instead of hiking north out of Damascus, Hot Tang, Uff-dah, Mzungu and I got a shuttle north about 90 trail miles. We decided to hike south back to Damascus for Trail Days, an annual festival. That section of trail was beautiful and it was fun to run into people we had hiked with earlier such as Catfish, Briar, Sea to Land, Dust in the Wind, Recurve, and Hammer. I traveled through the Grayson Highlands. In the Highlands I saw feral ponies. I saw baby ponies, pregnant ponies, all sorts of ponies!!! It was awesome. Unfortunately at that point I got rather sick. My throat swelled up and I got a fever. I spent a night in the Grayson Highlands feverish and not happy. The next day I hiked out two miles with Hot Tang to a parking lot where Iceman Dan, a 07' hiker gave us a ride to Damascus. After a visit to the local health clinic I obtained some antibiotics. I spent the next two nights at the Apple Tree bed and breakfast, mostly in bed or watching movies. Debbie, the proprieter, was so amazing. I recommend her place to everyone. Great breakfast too! I felt way better after two days and commenced to enjoy Trail Days and Damascus again.Trail Days was a little crazy and a lot of fun. I saw the locally filmed horror flick Grizzly Park, went to a contra dance where the best dancers were 60-70 year old men. I marched in a parade where all the towns people threw water balloons at the hikers. I slept in tent city which was basically a 4 day long party. Impossible to sleep, it was easier to lay in my sleeping bag listening to the drum circles going until 7am. After Trail Days, Hot Tang and I said goodbye to Uff-dah and Mzungu who were never planning on thru-hiking and left the trail after TRail Days. Good luck guys! I miss you a lot!Hot Tang and I headed to Hardcore 2008, a trail maintenence feista two days long organized by the awesome Bob Peoples. Two days of hard work swinging an axe at the ground was actually a lot of fun. We built two new stretches of trail that the AT is rerouted onto now. Hot Tang and I started hiking north after that and are now in Pearisburg. We did a 22 mile slackpack yesterday thanks to Lipstick and today are taking a zero so that we can go see Indiana Jones, once again thanks to Lipstick. She is awesome!