Date: 2016-10-27
From: dicks dome shelter

To: front royal va
Miles today: 15.2
Weather: overcast clouds

Kates toes are still a bit squished in her new boots so we took it easy and went to town. we got some "yes ma'ams" and "yall"s so it's good to be back in south south.  I love getting to towns early. It looks kinda cutesy but nowadays I can barely muster enough energy to binge eat, have a beer, and watch TV before passing out at 8pm. We were actually on the trail pretty close to first light since the old timers had gotten up at 5 to start a morning fire. That got me ready before kate for the first time this whole trip. I finally connected the dots on why they were so surly about awol and guthook. I had forgotten there was anything else until the guy showed me his phone and it was the aldha guide, which a lot of them had written. I almost put a huge foot in my mouth when I realized it was aldha's by saying man, why do you use this? Luckily I modified it before vocalizing that it's really hard to use for sobos. In fact, it's hard to use for anyone thru hiking and I've literally only seen one person, keg legs our brief sobo nobo friend, use it intentionally. As soon as she brought it out she was instantly accosted by everyone else too on why the hell she'd use that. And, point for aldha, she legit loves it and defended it vigorously. That being said, the old timers brought some new shit to light. First and foremost, the aldha guide is free to download with aldha membership and book proceeds go back into trail organizations while awol and guthook are doing it for profit. They also claim that a lot if not all of the info in awol and guthook was given to them by aldha under the assumption that proceeds would also go back to the trail in part, which they claim never happened.   That's pretty huge if it's true and makes me really want to just use aldha, but they need to put away their old man hats for a sec and realize their format sucks! That's if you're going north. If you're sobo, it really sucks. The dude acknowledged that after I almost insulted him by saying well there aren't enough sobos to make printing a different version worth it. Another oldmanism because why does awol do it and guthook at least have an orientation switch? That's all I have to say about that. I still love the PATC despite those folks gruffiness and their unwillingness to offer a beer or coffee while drinking copious amounts of it with hikers next to them.  (and they're former thru hikers!!) They were building a kick ass shelter after all. Then the next shelter we came across was another gem, the Denton shelter. Covered picnic pavillion, lounge chair, solar shower!?, and horseshoes! We didn't take full advantage but it was raining so having lunch at the pavillion was very nice. Most of the day was pretty uneventful, and slow going because of Kates poor toes. Really hope they break in soon. That's gotta be so frustrating. We're both listening to this cute civil war podcast with like 200 episodes. Inspired by the MD and WV historic sites we passed and the ones coming up. We passed manassas gap two days ago. There was harpers ferry and surrounding battles, and now we're in Shenandoah and I think we may get to shiloh soon. We were looking up some of the first conflicts, especially first manassas, also known as battle of bull run, and the fort Sumner war opener, and what struck me about both of those was that there were enthusiastic spectators! Charleston SC residents were out having cocktails on their verandas as they watched and cheered as SC bombarded fort sumner. And at manassas I, northern senators and others came down in droves with their carriages to picnic while watching what they hoped would be a quick rout of the rebels. Well it ended up being almost a rout of the feds, and the only thing keeping the rebels from decimating the union troops was that the roads were clogged with the picnickers, which allowed for a chaotic scramble back to DC.