Date: 2003-05-27
From: VA 600, Elk Garden

To: Campsite
Miles today: 9.6
Weather: light rain

Woke up today, looked out my little plastic window, and couldn't see any other tents! Panic! Did I oversleep, and had everyone else already left?? I checked the time...hmmm...7:16. I unzipped the door and fly of my tent to see that everyone was still there (and still sleeping, I might add)...I just couldn't see their tents from my window. Well, now that I was awake, I might as well DO something. So, after a privy break I got completely caught up on my journal and then hit the book. I'm really enjoying "A Prayer for Owen Meany", by John Irving. I've always loved his writing. It's been really relaxing to be able, these past few nights and mornings, to spend some time reading and writing. The pace and the company have been very conducive to relaxation...which is one of the reasons I came out here (y'know, besides walking an insane amount of miles every day). Today was no exception to the slower pace. Shelton, Jason and Thomas were meeting their friend, so they left !a bit before we did, and were ahead of us the whole day. We started out at a good clip, and took an hour long lunch at Thomas Knob Shelter. We saw our first pony right before the shelter...woo hoo! The privy there has a solar panel which runs an air exchange system (at least that's all we could figure). This is necessary for a moldering privy, which needs air to decompose everything properly. The views from both the shelter and the water source located behind it were amazing. And, although the sky kept filling with gray clouds throughout the day, the sun kept peeking out. After lunch, Blip and I headed through the stile in search of more ponies. We were first rewarded with a deer sighting...two of them, as a matter of fact. Very cool, but we were looking for PONIES! Over the next hill, we found them...or one herd, at least. We had taken out some dehydrated apples and veggie mix (not yours, Mom...the other mix!) to feed them, and several of them swarmed us. It wa!s neat having them eat the food off of our hands, but I've gotta tell you...they have some major problems with halitosis! Blip took some pictures of me feeding one piggish pony with her camera. I, alas, ran out of film after the initial picture of the herd. We stayed till we ran out of stuff to feed them, then continued on. Our next encounter was with a herd of cows...they were just hanging out to the left of the Trail...not very exciting. The only other wildlife we encountered for the rest of the day were day hikers and section hikers. I have to tell you that the views, the scenery in this area are just incredible. The AT in Virginia is so beautiful!! We hiked through rocky balds today that were just gorgeous, and offered views of mountain range after mountain range in every direction. And when we're not hiking atop the mountains, it's through grassy areas with tall, tall trees overhead. Everything is so green and lush...I know this isn't the area that's similar to the rain forest, but it seems like it. Everything is so alive...wha!t a great place to be! We ended up camping before we originally intended to, as an incredibly threatening dark gray cloud seemed to be bearing down upon us. We quickly set up our tents in an alcove near a large stream, only to see blue sky appear moments after we had set up... Oh, well...we cooked dinner (I rehydrated some spaghetti sauce that I had dehydrated...yum!), saw Shelton, Jason and Thomas, with their friend, Vincent (I think) and, yes, Thorn, the Dobie. They were pushing on a bit further to camp, but I'm sure we'll see them tomorrow. We decided to make an early night of it, as we are going to try to do 16 miles tomorrow. I know we can do it! Till then...good night!