Date: 2008-06-06
From: Trail Days

To: Shenandoah National Park
Miles today: 226.5

FoodOne of the great luxuries of hiking for several months is that your metabolism is through the roof, which means you can eat pretty much anything you want.This enables you to dive into all kind of food indulgences that on a normal circumstance one normally wouldn't spring for. The first two indulgences for me was cheese and peanut butter. I would take the large blocks of cheese on a 5 day segment, but the problem was that the cheese wouldn't last me for 2 days; not from going bad but because I would eat it all.This isn't your small 8oz block of cheese, but the one pound of cheese. Cheese with tuna, cheese in mashed potatoes, cheese with crackers, cheese with bagels, cheese everywhere.Peanut Butter went much the same way as the small jars would last me for about a week. Now I've upped it to the 2 pound jar.The one casuality though has been Nutella. I was excited for a very long time about consuming an entire jar of Nutella. I waited and waited until I thought the timing was right. During one of my town stops, when I thought I was ready, I not only bought a jar of peanut butter but also the coveted jar of Nutella.Everything was going alright until the 2nd day in and an unexpected cold snap came in. Peanut butter works well in the cold, but to my dismay, Nutella harens up and loses its spread-like quality. So morning after morning I tried to have a nice and easy bagel with Nutella on it, only to be denied by the cold and solid chunck of chocolate before me. On my last day before I hit another town stop, the weather heated up enough so I could enjoy my chocolate at once, and I was not about to carry an entire jar over 50 miles and not eat it, so I eat Nutella I did. By the time I finished the jar, I wanted nothing more to do with chocolate or Nutella.Food has also been a great motivator for me. Section 2 in Virginia (Virginia is the only state on the trail to have sections since about 25% of the trail lies in the state) is known for its remote mountains and constant 1000-2000 foot climbs. In this section there is a restaurant called Homeplace Restaurant in Catawba that serves an all you can eat buffet with the best southern home cooking you can imagine. Many hikers claim that it's the best restaurant in the trail, but you have to time you hike carefully because the restaurant is only open during certain days/times.At 5pm on Friday, I found out that the restaurant was only open Thursday to Sunday, and that it closed at 6pm on Sunday. When I found this out I quickly looked at my guidebook and saw that I was over 40 miles away. So I did what any resonable person with a passion for good food would do, I hiked 16 hours the next day so I would be in a comfortable position to eat a fantstic meal.I could have made that 16 hour day much shorter, but the prospect of watching a sunrise at a place called "Dragon's Tooth" then eating a great meal sounded too good to be true, so the miles just had to be covered.After eating a fabulous meal I had no desire to move anywhere. Luckily the owners of the restaurant were kind to all the thru-hikers and allowed us to camp in the restaurant grounds/in their gazebo all while customers where still around which provided for a festive atmosphere.A special thank you is also needed to the Bailey's who not only drove me to a gas station so I could pick up more food, but they waited for me to buy what I needed, and drove me back which was completly out of their way.-----Tomorrow I'll be heading off into the Shenandoah National Park and to DC to have a vacation from my vacation