Date: 2010-05-15
From: Damascus (Abingdon)

To: Damascus (Abingdon)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Kind of a lazy, slow start this morning...nice and relaxing. Really noticed my cankles today...lots of swelling of my ankles and feet. I'm guessing you could lance them right now and some kind of sausage gravy/beer mix would ooze out...probably need to be drinking a bit more water on these off days. Showered and then went through all the care packages and ate/picked out what I would eat/pack with me...probably had 20 lbs of care package goodies and I can't eat it all or pack it all with me. Wanted to take the leftovers to the hostel when we go back to Damascus for the parade today...my fellow hikers will now love me. Thanks everyone for all the great care packages! Sheri and I then went to a great little local place for breakfast and then hit the Kmart to pick up some super soaker water guns. That's right, you definitely need some water fire power during this parade. One of the big traditions of the Trail Days parade is the water fight between the hikers in the parade and the townspeople...very unique and fun parade. I bought a few extra guns to give out when I got to the parade...probably hard to come by in Damascus. We got to Damascus just before the parade started, so we dropped off the goodies at the hostel and then Sheri hit the street and I went to walk in the parade. Caught up with a few friends who ventured down or stayed in tent city last night (Conan, Backwards, Spanx, Thunder, Tour Guide, John, Just Lisa, etc.) and it sounds like it was a wild time down there. The lining up process for the parade was a bit dysfunctional, so a lot of us in the class of 2010 ended up walking with the 2001 group...or maybe we just can't read very well. The parade was a blast! Lots of water balloons, super soakers, hoses, buckets...you name it, it had water in it. I ran out of water pretty early on, but got lucky and ran into Hollywood who was carry extra water, so he filled me up again...thanks, buddy. I would have missed Sheri in the crowd if it weren't for John and Just Lisa (both dressed in blue checkered dresses)...too late to douse her with water though. After the parade, we checked out the different vendor booths and went down to tent city just to check out the set up. I thought it was going to be one big field of tents, but Damascus is building a new baseball field, so I think that caused them to move all the tents back into the tree line...tents were more scattered, but probably cooler in the shade of the trees. Not much partying going on yet...probably resting up for another late night. We hit Quincy's for one last drink (or two) and then decided to call it a day in Damascus. A lot of hikers actually left after the parade or were leaving early tomorrow, so the scene seemed to being winding down...or they all went home to take naps and we missed a big Saturday night. I really wanted to just go relax and watch a movie, so we went to Taco Bell for a quick dinner and then to Robin Hood (not a great movie...kind of long and boring). Was going to start packing up when we got back to the hotel, but that seemed like work, so I decided it could wait until the morning. Sheri actually stayed up and uploaded all the pictures she took to my website...thanks, Sheri! It's been a few days, so it's time to get back on the trail tomorrow. Cheers.