Date: 2009-09-17
From: Snickers Gap, VA

To: Daleville, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

I'm realizing as I write this entry that I've been quite lax about letting those at home know what's been going on with me. First of all let me say that I often get lost in my thoughts as the days roll by. What was a week ago only seems like a day or two. Time on the AT travels quite fast but all the same so very slow. In saying that let me catch you up on what's been going on since my last entry.After leaving DC and Harper's Ferry, we were thrown right into the hiker glorified section of trail named Shenandoah National Park. For the sake of hiker slang we just call them the "Shennies." The reason that this section of trail is so glorified is because for one NOBO's are coming off of the craziness that is Central VA (we'll get to that not to worry) and it's actually very easy hiking and is FILLED with wildlife. As far as wildlife goes it was not uncommon for us to see at least half a dozen to a dozen deer everyday (bucks, does, fauns), we saw more bears in the Shennies that we did in NJ (NJ is supposed to have the most bears per capita on the entire trail) and I even got to see a Rattlesnake and a couple skunks. Talk about a crazy cool wildlife experience. One of my favorite momments while in the Shennies was when Brewer and I were walking down the trail and all of a sudden coming in the opposite direction were two 8-10 point bucks. We stopped and stared at them and they stopped to check us out. I wasn't about to try to pass a buck that was standing right in the middle of the trail that was a LOT bigger than me! Brewer and I aslo attempted to night hike because we'd heard that that the Shennies were a great place to do that, PLUS it was a full moon! Well that was a wash. The tree canopy was too full for us to be able to do anthing resembling hiking, so the headlamps came out and that was when we stumbled upon our very first skunk. I was trying to make some noise to scare it off and then Brewer informed me that I could just plain scare it. Well since tomato juice is in short supply on the trail, scaring a skunk would take our already terrible stench (I can tell how bad I smell by the way people look at me when I'm in town and haven't showered yet) and take it way past any possible hiker funk. But I continue to digress...It was a great treat to have my parents come up and pick Brewer and I up from the trail and treat us to a nice trip into town. My stepdad Jeff was planning on joining us for about a week and we were stoked to have him along. However I don't think we were as stoked as he was to be hiking along with us. It was our hope to give him a little taste of everything a thru-hiker would have to deal with/experience while on the trail. He even got the trail name "Rigormortis" Our first night was in a shelter and like anyone who has stayed in the woods the first night is the night of adjustment. Throughout the next day we kept seeing some great vistas and plenty of wildlife. Jeff spotted a baby bearcub jogging along the trail, we were afraid to get to close because we figured that mama bear was around too. Anyhow the next night we "stealth camped." Stealth Camping is where you either camp in a small tent spot along the trai, or you camp somewhere that you're really not supposed to camp at all...we did the latter. We pulled up in a camping spot in an actual campground but it was right next to the trail so we did our resupply and then just snuck into a camping spot without paying. We cooked some hotdogs and lived it up there at the campground and then headed to bed because it looked like rain. Sure enough the next morning we awoke to the sound of rain. We got on all of our rain gear and walked up to the campstore to pick up a few more things that we'd forgotten to get and to throw away some trash. While throwing away our trash, some volunteer rangers approached us and asked if one of us was Jeff White. This was weird becasue we were "stealth camping" and no one knew that we were at the campground.   They'd informed us that there was an emergency call for us. So we tried to use the payphone but the stupid thing wouldn't really work, then the real ranger pulled up and gave us a real telephone. We called Mom. I knew something was bad when I saw Jeffy was upset. He handed me the phone and Mom told my that my G-paw had passed away. Not an easy thing to hear out here on the trail. I talked to Jeffy a little bit and we decided that it would be better if I stayed out here on the trail, and retrospectively I definatly think that it was the right decision. The Rangers took Jeffy to his car and Brewer and I went to the next shelter taking a short day. That was one of the toughest days for me on the trail because I didn't know if staying on the trail was the right choice. I wrote my G-paw a letter and that was a good thing for me. In all things sad good things come. Brewer was a wonderful listening ear and I was glad to have him there and glad to have Jeffy there to be a voice of reason and support.Again in all bad things, good comes of it. Because Brewer and I pulled a short day a buddy of ours caught us, Catfish. It was good to see a familiar SOBO face. He seemed pretty eager to be doing some big miles but we encouraged him to slow down and join us. He agreed and we hike together. We rolled into Waynesboro with high hopes of an All You Can Eat Buffet (AYCE as we call them). Man, we were not disappointed. The word on the trail was that Ming Garden was number 2 to only "The Homeplace" in VA. Man, at Ming they had anything and everything you'd ever want Chinese. As much as we dream, sleep and think about food, Ming Garden was the closest thing to heaven. We gorged ourselves with chinese, then went next door to resupply at the Kroger. Food, FOod, FOOd, FOOD! Man we eat a lot. We stayed at the Quality Inn in Waynesboro, which was nice because we watched Obama give his address on healthcare (we're out of the news) and we had a good 'ole time. The interesting thing about Waynesboro is that they have a list of people that you can call and they'll come and pick you up at the trail and take you into town. We'd called a very nice southern man they the first name of DuBose. He definately helped us out big time!Out of Waynesboro we pushed hard. We had a AT famous destination to get to. The destination Rusty's Hardtime Hollow. Rusty is as amazing as they come. He lives right off of the Blue Ridge Parkway and open's his house to hikers year around. We had a blast while we were there. First of all it'd been a while since Rusty had any company so he talked our ears off about the area around him, and about crazy people he'd had into his place. Man it was great. We fried up some hotdogs and got some cool drinks out of his spring house. Now something that you should know about Rusty is that he likes to to things the old way. He's only had electricity and a phone for about 4 years now. He is famous on the trail for his signs. When I get the chance I'll have to post some pictures of his signs. All of them have humor, and are VERY funny...at least to hikers. We slept in the top of his barn that he'd converted to a pretty sweet bunkhouse. The next morning we woke up and decided to take a day off. Rusty had promised us some of his famous blueberry pancakes! YUMMY! Well we were going to have the pancakes for breakfast but we were distracted by a Forest Service official coming into Rusty's looking for a few hikers that might have some information on the murders that happend about a month back involving some Virginia Tech Students. We hadn't seen the hiker's he was describing but gave him information we had. We piddled around on Rusty's place doing some laundry with a plunger and bucket, and later on in the day he plowed up some potatoes for us to pick up and that we had later that night with some BBQ chicken! To say the least Rusty's was one of the best stops on the entire trail!!!The day we were planning on leaving Rusty's he was going to take us back to the trail but like us so much that he was trying to stall to convince us to stay another day! But again the trail calls us back and we hit the trail really late. We were a little frustrated but our frustration melted away when we caught the sunset on the top of "The Priest." The Priest was the biggest climb that we have had since Mass. The days to follow the priest proved to be some tough days because of the extended hills. Central VA is notorious for large LONG hills.At this point Catfish, Brewer and myself were all running VERY low on food and our next stop for resupply was a town called Glasgow. Now acording to our Thru-hiker book there was supposed to be a motel in Glasgow and we were all looking forward to getting cleaned up a little bit and sleeping in a bed. Well when we arrived in Glasgow the motel was no longer open and then only place to resupply was a small mom and pop type grocery store. We resupplied and by that point in the day we didn't want to hike more. Catfish, caught a hitch out of town but Brewer and I decided to stay. We eyed a pavillion in the middle of town and hoped to sleep there. We were scared that a cop or someone was going to come and kick us out because we were not supposed to be sleeping there but we had no where else to go. Sleeping in fear=bad sleep. The next morning we awoke tired and frustrated. We tried to hit the trail but hitching was terrible. We ended up calling a local guy to shuttle us back to the trail. Once we got back on the trail hiking along the James River proved to be really nice. It wasn't until we hit some of the shelters that we knew what our next challenge was going to be...water. I'd had the understanding that water was only a problem in NY and NJ. However, since Central VA has not had rain in quite sometime almost all of the springs and streams were dry. Yesterday we spent over an hour getting 6 liters of water. I had to dig out a hole to get water to pool enough to dip a bottle in to get out enough water. Oh the trail continues to suprise us! Whew...I hope that you enjoied that update and I look forward to seeing you soon! Until next timeP.S. Here are a few songs that have been stuck in my head while on the trail. Thanks Myles for a couple of them...http://www.stephenkellogg.com/home.shtml (Episode 3)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDj44n5bjWUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AwpX4N3xto