Date: 2005-05-09
From: Hurricane Mtn. Shelter, VA

To: Trimpi Shelter, VA
Miles today: 10.2
Weather: clear sky

The six miles from Hurricane down to Dickey Gap went by lightning-quick, even with a stop at Comer¢s Creek to sit by the falls (and speculate with Scholar about where Poet had disappeared to: her pack was lying by the water, but she was nowhere to be found.) Collective consensus held, by the time we all emerged onto the field by the road, that Wingfoot¢s mileage must have been wrong ¢ it¢s possible I walk faster now than I did at the beginning of the trip, but I¢ll eat my packcover if I was walking three and half miles per hour this morning. So anyway, I lounged in the sun for a while and read and made Cuppa take a picture of me by the Mouth of Wilson sign (it¢s Where You Want to Be) and eventually we decided to try and get the couple of miles down the road into Troutdale to the general store for lunch. By this time Piker, Mileage, Squid Jerky, and Bruce Spruce had also arrived at the Gap, which meant eleven of us total were trying to get a ride. Not a recipe for success; plus, for some inexplicable reason, Cuppa had been the one trying to flag down passing cars. Poor strategy ¢ un-PC though it may be to admit it, cars always pick up girls more quickly. A handful of people abandoned the idea of getting a ride and began walking down the road; I, cherishing my laziness, dawdled with the rest of the pack and was rewarded when a truck pulled up a moment later. By the time everyone and their packs were crammed into the back of the pickup ¢ 11 in all ¢ we were pushed together and on top of each other so tightly I don¢t think I had a single limb that wasn¢t contorted at an unnatural angle.We ate lunch at the general store and passed around the newspaper and did the crosswords and read the advice columns and ate ¢ I had a grilled cheese sandwich and a slice of cookies-n-cream ice cream pie, which inspired Poet and Free and Scholar to get pie too, but Free was a little scared to ask the waitress, who gave every indication of being in the middle of the worst day of her life. I understand bad days happen, but when a whole tableful of people are collectively terrified of the potential repercussions of asking for refills on water, the point of no return has obviously been reached. (Also of note from our Troutdale lunch: tried fried pickles for the first time. I don¢t think I¢ve ever even seen fried pickles on a menu before. They were okay ¢ tasted, I guess, about as you¢d expect: like pickles. But hot. And covered in fry.)No 11-person-capacity pickup truck appeared to be anywhere near when we left the general store, so we started trickling down the road on foot, back towards the trailhead. I hadn¢t gone terribly far when a white pickup pulled over and offered me a lift; the driver turned out to be LWOP, a 2004 thru-hiker whom I knew was a friend of Cuppa Joe¢s. LWOP stopped for Free and Poet and Scholar, who were also trickling towards the trailhead, and we could see Cuppa Joe a short ways up the road. But Cuppa wouldn¢t get in the truck when we tried to pick him up ¢ he was, unaccountably, in the mood to walk or something, and waved us on ahead¢ so we had to pull over a second time so I could holler to him to get his butt in the truck already. Cuppa and LWOP had a rousing reunion.Trimpi, the next shelter and our destination for the night, was only another four miles up the trail, and I walked at an easy pace with Poet and Free and Scholar. Linux was there when we arrived ¢ he and Serenity had left a little earlier ¢ and he asked us where Serenity was. ¢Isn¢t she with you?¢ I asked. She¢d been ahead of us, and we definitely hadn¢t passed her, and she also definitely was not at the shelter. We were all a little concerned ¢ though not terribly, since we knew Serenity could take care of herself ¢ but we thought she might have missed the shelter turnoff and kept on going, which sort of generally blows. Sure enough, she showed up an hour later ¢ she¢d indeed gone too far, and eventually figured out she needed to retrace her steps.The shelter was full of good people ¢ everyone I¢d been with all day, and a couple of very nice weekenders with two very nice dogs, and Silent Bob and Fireball and Nu-B and the Troll family, whom I¢d been hearing about for a long time but with whom I had never spent any time. Best exchange of the day, between me and ten-year-old Oblivious:me: ¢so Oblivious, how did you get your name?¢Oblivious: does not answer because he is staring at a spot on his armThe evening was lots of fun: I made Free and Poet and Scholar and Nu-B play various pen-and-paper games with me, and then we joined the rest of the group and traded riddles and more games and jokes until exhausted. And then bed.