Date: 2008-05-29
From: Waynesboro, VA

To: Front Royal, VA
Miles today: 107.1
Weather: scattered clouds

Tha stay at Waynesboro was really good and we wished we can stay longer but time does not wait for us and we had to get going. Our stay here was really organized, there were telephone numbers of people in town who are willing to give hikers a ride from or back to the trail. After we went to the post office we called one and 15 minutes later we had a nice gentleman ready to drive us back. The Shenandoah Park starts here as well and we will be walking it for the next 100 miles or so. The best part of walking through this park are the numerous camp grounds. We can afford to bring less food and make light resupply stops on the way. On our second day we stopped in for some ice cream and soda, it also gave us a while to relax before we made the last few miles of the day. The shelters here are not spread out evenly and most of the time we did have to find a spot in the woods to camp at. Looking on our maps it looks easy from the terrain but we did have a hard time a few times to find a large enough flat, level spot to set up the tent. It usually means making a few more miles more than we planned originally while we looks for a suitable location. With the Memorial Day weekend there were herds of people around, every few minutes we would run into someone on the trail, mostly just people day hiking the trail next to the camp grounds. With all of them, we still and finally got to see a BEAR. We were walking along close to the road and a nice black bear ran across the road and the trail about 50 feet in front of us. I didn¢t even have time to pull out the camera and take a picture. As it ran across the trail it stopped and looked at us before running of into the woods. After all the bear stories we hear about we finally have our own. On our fourth day we stopped at a campground again, this time for a nice big early dinner. The food was good but the blackberry milkshakes they had were absolutely delicious. Before we left we stopped in the camp store and got a few more items for the next two days. Since we had a lot of food we decided to get some fruit for dinner that night. We found a canteloupe, which we took a few more miles to a shelter we were going to stay at. And here is the best part, Karen got here trail name finally. We got to the shelter and met a few of our friends that were already there and Karen whips out the melon in front of everyone making an announcement of what she got and immediately recieving the trail name ¢Melon¢. From now on Karen will be known on the trail as Melon. A few weeks back we got contacted by a local reporter who wanted to do a story on Appalachian hikers for his paper. We finally got to meet him, he walked with us for a few miles taking pictures and asking questions. When I get the article I will try to post it here for everyone to read. The best part was at the end when we got invided for a dinner. He drove us to town and bought us a huge calzone and some drinks. Full and very happy we got dropped off at the trail and made the last mile to the shelter. Our last day before getting to town we made 21 miles, it was unplanned as we were looking for water source that did not exist making a lot more miles than we wanted to. Once we got our water finding a suitable sleeping location was the next challenge and we made it a bit more further before finding one. But at least we only had a few miles into town in the morning. We made it to Front Royal at about 11 or so in the morning, giving us plenty of time to relax and get the usual things done for the upcoming week.