Date: 2008-05-22
From: Dragon's Tooth

To: Homestead Restaurant
Miles today: 8.4

We slept excellent last night, but because we had run out of water, we both had dreams about some pretty weird water situations. Brad and I climbed up onto some tall rocks and sat looking at the valley below. It was really nice to just sit together and talk about how different our lives are now, compared to a year ago. We head out on the Trail with blue skies and a bright shining sun. The Trail is really rocky and steep and very technical. There are spots where they have put in rungs into the rocks for you to hold on to. There are some hairy spots where I sort of just sit on my butt and ease my way down. It is slow moving cause I'm afraid I am going to break my neck. We thankfully survive this section without getting hurt. We make our way down the Trail and the rhododendrons are in full bloom. It is absolutely beautiful! It is the first time we have seen this many flowering at the same time. They are on both sides of the Trail, just a blanket of pinkish-purplish color. It has a magical, almost fairy tale feel to it, it is so pretty. It makes us stop in our tracks and just marvel at the beauty surrounding us. We take lots of photos, but they don't come close to capturing the perfect-ness of this scene.We come to a road crossing, VA624, and walk the 0.4 miles to a gas station/convenience store. We order breakfast biscuits and have a snack from the Little Debbie rack as an appetizer. And of course, Sprite. We see all the folks we camped with last night and hang out in the sun laughing about how happy we are to be at a gas station. And, how peculiar it is to have a tab here. The cashier just holds our cards and keeps a running tally of the snacks we get. And when we finally leave, she runs the card with the grand total just once. Only in a hiker's world...Leaving the gas station we have another climb. It is a lot of roller-coastering like yesterday, but on a much more mellow scale. We do a few more miles and come to a road crossing, VA311. We walk the one mile into Catawba and it is quite traumatizing. The highway is full of trucks and BIG trucks that all fly by and they don't move over to give you any space to walk. I try to walk behind the guardrail whenever possible but it is still scary as hell. We walk into town, get an ice cream at the general store then head to the Homestead Restaurant. We meet up with Stubbs, Mr. Bones, Whisper, Shout, Blues Traveler, Boat, Catfish, Sea To Land, Alien, Time Cop and Danger Snake. We all get one big table and have an enormous all you can eat family style meal together. They don't have much for vegetarians in these parts so I fill up on mashed potatoes, coleslaw, cooked apples and biscuits. Everyone else has that plus lots of various meats and veggies (they cook their veggies with ham hock that's why I don't partake). We all really enjoy ourselves and are full to the bursting point. This large family comes in and gets seated next to us. They make it rather obvious that they think we smell (which I'm sure we do, only we can't really tell cause there are so many of us) and one guy in particular keeps glaring at our table. We laugh it off as we enjoy our ice cream for dessert. Some people have no tolerance for hikers. We are fortunate these cranky people are few and far between! We all debate whether we should hike on or not, but the decision is made for us when we are told we can camp on the front lawn of the restaurant. The whole clan, now including another couple, Tree and Moonpie, set up our tents on the lawn. It looks like a festival! We hang out in the gazebo laughing into the night...