Date: 2010-05-18
From: Pearisburg

To: Pine Swamp Branch Shelter
Miles today: 19.3
Weather: light rain

 Woke up alone at the Holy Family Hostel at 4:50 am. Showered and packed up my new 15 lb. pack! Slept great. Found a tick on my leg for the first time yesterday. Got it while walking to Walmart in knee high grass. Saw a road leading to the new hospital and walked on concrete on the way back to the hostel. Feeling excited about returning to the trail after all this time off. A trail angel left cookies and brownies, and I was the only one there to eat them. Did the responsible thing and enjoyed them while it was still fresh. The brownie maker wrote "Happy Hiking" on it in icing! I left the words for the next resident to arrive. Drank all the milk and OJ that was left in the fridge. Watched over the top of my coffee mug as three does grazed in the yard. Thought about that 5 ft long black snake that stretcher pulled out of the walls right in the hostel kitchen. He scared me with it when I got out of the shower. Lucky for him, he was not within arms length. Feet feel amazing after leaving the hostel. Far from the battered hamburger that I left with for trail days. I'm wearing dress socks under my smart wools to see if they help at all. Not really sure why, "If it ain't broke..." The neighborhood here has so many Blue Jays! They always seem up to something. Scheming. Looking for trouble. Got to the Citgo station and laid my pack on the ground. You get rides quicker when you're not carrying your backpack. Don't walk down the road. It seems to work better when your appearance is tired and helpless. Stuck out my thumb and John who owns "John's Motors" offered me a ride. He bought his retired police cruiser for $444.44 at a government auction. We talked about Pearisburg and how I enjoyed my stay. He said that he wished people were doing jobs that made them happy. He knows a lot of people that work for the factory in town that live unhappily. He likes his job. Loves it, actually. He graduated from Virginia Tech and bought his auto stop and has been doing that ever since. He asked if I wanted to be dropped off at where I left off or over the bridge. He seemed happy to know that I don't take short cuts. He stuck out his hand for a handshake, nodded at me and pulled away. Weird trail leaving town. It twists and turns through backyards engulfed in poison ivy. The sky is overcast with low hanging clouds. Fog rests on the mountain tops like the day I cam into town. The trail goes right by the local cigarette filter manufacturing plant. Surreal walking by that huge industrial building. Tons of lights glowing through the fog. I wonder if the trail blazers wanted you to see this plant. To consider it. To question it's presence here and in society. So many things attract us to these towns. The convenience that we take for granted is merely the surface of what we're doing to ourselves. Convenience is just a disguise for the ugly truth that all these amenities are like a virus. Plastic. Metal. Trash. They keep growing. I saw a disposable charcoal grill the other day. We use products once and throw them away. Somewhere there's a facility that produces massive amounts of waste to develop something that will only end up along side the crap that it took to make it. You need a bigger plant. More efficient. More products at the expense of the environment. Huge clouds of poisonous gasses pumped into the air to make cigarette filters that don't even make the product any safer. I feel like my body has mounted an immune response to society. I feel the lymphocytes attacking my former habits and complacency. My cells dividing and new DNA taking the place of the framework of who I was. I feel divided split in two. My hope is to become a new person after this. The trail went away from the noisy plant. The smog pumping into the air through the tree leaves became harder to see. Winding into the forest, the trail crossed a side road with a chain link fence. The sign on the fence told me that this was a landfill that operated by the factory. I wonder what kind of waste materials this plant produces? We urinate and defecate 200 yds away from our water sources. This plant is right on the river! how far away do you have to be to bury hazardous chemicals in the ground? Rainy, but not cold today. Foggy with no views. Met Blue Rooster and Cowboy at Rice Field Shelter. Been seeing chipmunks but haven't been quick enough for a picture yet. They bark and mock me just long enough to watch me get my camera then they disappear under a leaf or tree roots! Lots of vegetation today. The leaves look like a car with green primer paint. That dull color without luster or sheen. The leaves are bright green but they look soft like satin. Took a break under a couple of cool oak trees at Sam Meadow. Met Trinket. He's short, very nice and has an impressive billy-goat-like beard. Really nice and friendly. We talked about how excited we are to see what happens further up the trail. All these magical moments make it hard to believe it could be any better. Its motivation to continue. To see what other crazy coincidences happen. Fell hard on a slippery rock. Caught myself with my hand, but my right knee smacked the rock hard. Limping profusely. Bruised but OK!Trinket is looking for a "zip line" to Captain's house. He lives just off the trail and provides hikers with free drinks and camping. I'm loving my new Platypus water container. I can carry 3 liters now. Drank lots of water today. Plenty of good springs available for access to untreated water. Pine Branch Shelter has a fireplace. Really cramped but approaching storm makes it cozy. Tomato greeted me here! He's back on the trail! Swelling on his ankle is down. He's taking it easy and only doing 15. Blue Rooster, Cowboy, String Cheese, Michigan, Heads Up, Jibbits, Tomato, and two section hikers here. String Cheese had a problem with my backpack being on the same nail as his. He gets up at 4 AM he tells me! Thought I was going to be sleeping on the ground but they made room. I smell bad. Virgin nose after 5 days off. Knee hurts real bad. Tomorrow will be rough, maybe. Maybe not. I'll eat a good breakfast to psych myself up.