Date: 2007-07-22
From: Pine Swamp Branch sShelter

To: Pearisburg
Miles today: 19.0
Weather: broken clouds

Okay, so I didn't sleep as well as I had hoped I would. I woke up during the night and could not go back to sleep for about an hour. When I did finally get up and break camp I was still motivated to go into town. I did have an animal encounter before I left. A mouse ran aross my foot in the privy. I guess he wasn't happy that I opened the door and let in the sunlight. I filled up on water as today's hike is about 20 miles of dry. The weather was cool all day so I really didn't need as much as I carried but I've been without water before and I didn't want that experience again.It was a nice switched back climb up to Peter's Mtn and then the trail was pretty nice. I think I might be getting out of the VA rocks, but I don't want to be presumptuous.I arrived at Symms Gap Meadow and at the campsite there, I hit my 2000 mile mark! Yippee! I am officially a 2000 miler. I had a snack and took a self portrait to commemorate the occasion. As I snuffed out my celebratory snack and was picking up my backpack a nobo walked up, MOF. I had someone to share my news with (no cell service to call home). We chatted for a long time about trail experiences and then turned and hiked opposite directions. MOF was a nice guy and he reminded me of my friends, the Sykoras. I swear they could be related.This Peter's Mtn is easy hiking, but noisey. I can hear the loud hum of the Celco Plant in Pearisburg for about 15 miles. I stopped at Rice Field Shelter for a late lunch. It's a really nice shelter with a great view and a nice construction design. But I can't stay long, I want to get to town. The downhill kinda gets rocky again which is frustrating, but I get encouraged when I find a note on the ground for me at a road crossing from the Indiana family. It was so nice of them to think of me. Then I lost the trail. I only get lost at road crossings. Ugh. A nice couple stops by to offer me a ride to town, but instead I just ask them to point me back to the trail. Then its two more miles to town. I pass by the Celco Plant and their private landfill. Just after the landfill, I see a black bear off to the left. It runs away though. I cross the New River and hike about a mile into town to the Holiday Motor Lodge the most disgusting hotel I have ever stayed in, but wh!at can you expect for $36? I had hoped to go to the All Sports Bar next door to celebrate my 2000 miler status, but they are closed permanently. So I take a shower, go across the street to get some chinese food and beer and celebrate in my hotel room and flip tv channels between the movie Ocean's Eleven and Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel (a show where this man is parachuted into the wild woods of various countries and has to make it back to civilization using only basic survival skills) and try and talk on the phone with my family, but cell service in this town sucks. Really, this town sucks all together. I don't know how any hiker ever falls into the town trap in this town! Around 11 pm, the men in the room next to me start fighting and cussing and there are women hollering for them to go back to their rooms. Its totally redneck. Needless to say, my door is locked and there is a chair in front of the door. They finally quiet down and go to their rooms and I f!all asleep after the movie.