Date: 2005-05-03
From: Damascus, VA

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Sometimes I wish I could sleep longer. I have always been an early riser and today was no exception. I got up and was at the laundromat at 6:45. I did laundry and worked on my journal. By time everything was done it was eight. I headed back down the street and saw that Freedom and Scholar were awake. They were thinking about breakfast but I asn't ready yet so I packed up my stuff and moved over to "The Place". It is a hostel operated by the local Methodist Church. Hikers can stay two nights for a very small donation. The fact that places like this exist means a lot to the hikers and, for the most part, all of them pitch in to keep places like this clean. After I got settled I headed to the park. The sun was out but it was cool. I wanted to finish up on my journal as well as see Free, Serenity, Break and Linux when they got to town. The trail passes right through the park. Several people came down the mountain into town including Bruce Spruce and Miss Mileage. Eventually Break and Linux came in. I greeted them and we took pictures under the Damascus arch. They said that Free and Serenity would be down in awhile so I decided to walk back into town with them. We hit the post office to get maildrops and then went back to The Place where they dropped their stuff. Food was on the mind by now so Pizza became the word of the morning (10:30 by now). Off we went. We were joined by Pacman and Scholar. We ordered and as we were waiting Free and Serenity walked by. Poet stopped in to say hi. She couldn't stay because her parents were coming to visit. We didn't even give them a chance to get anywhere. Off came their packs and they came in and ordered. We had a good time and then the rumor surfaced. It is unconfirmed as of yet but supposedly the infamous bottle of perfume was supposed to have found its way into Scholar's pack before she left Erwin. Rumor has it that Touk slipped it into her pack at Miss Janet's. None of GLGE disputed that this was supposed to have occured. The problem is that Scholar has not found the bottle in her pack which leads to two possibilities. One, Touk failed to make the deposit before Scholar left. Second, Touk deposited the perfume in another hikers pack by mistake. If this is the case then we have our first collateral damage victim! An unsuspecting soul probably opened his/her pack, saw this bottle, and thought, "What the hell! Where did this come from"? Touk will never live this down if that is what happened! We will find out soon because the grapevine has them being close to Damascus. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing town chores and catching up with people. We also worked on our plan for the week. All of us are planning to come back next Thursday for the Trail Days festivities. We were trying to decide where to bail out at; either Atkins or Bland. Atkins would mean true GLGE mileage whereas Bland would mean bigger days. We are leaning toward Atkins. Speaking of GLGE. I guess I am on probation. Break hasn't decided if she is going to boot me out because I did the 26 mile day. A gross breach of GLGE conduct! I am spending some time groveling to try to avert this. I know she will read this so, Break, "Do two 9 mile days make up for it"?