Date: 2006-11-21
From: Shenandoah National Park - Pass Mountain, Va

To: Shenandoah National Park - Skyland, Va
Miles today: 12.1

It was another chilly night with the temps in the 20's. I didn't sleep well once again because I couldn't get comfortable laying on my side...my knee hurts.It's OK all day walking, but something about laying on my side makes it ache enough to keep me awake. I try to fall asleep laying on my back, but that's not comfortable to me, so I toss and turn all night.I woke up at 6:45am and made 1 1/2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That finished off my bread and peanut butter and I only have a little jelly left.I also had some Jolt Caffeine Gum since I felt a small headache just before I got up.It's always chilly packing up and getting out of my warm sleeping bag in the morning.I got an email yesterday asking me if I was still wearing my hiking shorts...and yes, I am. My legs just don't get cold when I'm walking, at least not in these kinds of temperatures.I have been wearing a silk weight long sleeve shirt, a medium weight long sleeve shirt and a windshirt for the last two days. I regulate my temperature by zipping and unzipping the windshirt. I've even worn gloves in the mornings.Anyway, I packed up my tent this morning and my fingers went numb from the ice that was on the tent...guess I should have been wearing my gloves then. :-)))I started walking at 7:20am.I walked by Pass Mountain Hut without stopping, then crossed Thornton Gap at Rt 211 and made a 1,200 foot climb to the summit of Mary's Rocks.There was lots of ice and frost heave in the Trail. The ground was hard frozen and where there had been slippery mud, it was easy walking on top of the now frozen mud.I did see Byrds Nest 3 Day Use Area today because I walked right by the stone structure. I walked around to see if anyone was there, but it just had some leaves blown in it and was empty other than that.I climbed 500 feet up to the Pinnacle, then descended 500 feet to Pinnacles Picnic Area.This next story is for John Galt '03...he's the only one that will know what I'm talking about. Park Ranger Anthony Lutz saw me walking on the Trail and pulled me over to check my permit. Remember Ranger Rick with a "P"?? ;-)))After that intrusion, I walked on to Hughes Gap, then started climbing Stony Man Mountain...about 1,000 feet up.I got to Little Stony Man Mountain and stopped to take a few photos of the views. It was a crisp, sky blue day. I tried getting a large frozen pond of water that was in the rocks along with the far off views in the pictures. Hope they turn out nice.I walked on at got to the top of Stony Man Mountain, then started back down a little over a mile to the south entrance to Skyland.It was in that area that I saw the first deer I had seen all day...three of them watching me walk by.It was shortly after noon when I got to Skyland. I walked in the lodge, checked email and sat down in front of the fireplace to answer a few.I sent those off, then went in the dining room and had four cups of good coffee along with a bowl of potato soup, a cheeseburger and fries.I went back and sat in front of the fire for a while, then walked next door and checked into my room.I had to walk about 1/3 mile just to get to my room, but it has a nice view of the valley below.I saw two more deer in the parking lot as I walked to my room.I spread out my tent in the room to dry and it still had some ice left in it. :-)))It has been eleven days since I got the stitches in my leg. The doctor told me they needed to come out in ten days, but it was too cold to do it last night, so I sat in my nice, warm room and started cutting out the stitches. The only problem I had was that there was nine stitches and I was only able to find eight and I cut those out. It started bleeding a little, but it's well on it's way to healing. :-))) I'll look for that other stitch in a week or so.I layed around the warm room and layed out a tentative schedule for the last 225 miles of this walk. If all works out and the weather holds up, I should be finishing about December 7th...Thursday, December 7th, the first day of the week that The Homeplace is open for business. :-)))I walked out on my balcony as the sun was setting and took a bunch of photos of one, beautiful sunset.When all the pink had left the sky, I walked back up to the dining area and ate dinner. I had some lox salad and crackers to start, then spinach fettacini (sp?) with a venison sausage and wild mushroom marinara sauce. It was very good, but I was wondering about the venison sausage while I was eating. These deer in Shenandoah would be so easy to catch. ;-)))I had four cups of coffee and for desert, I ordered blackberry cobbler with blackbarry ice cream on top...yumm, yumm.I walked back to my room and spent the evening there, nice and warm, watching the twinkling lights in the valley below and listening to the wind whipping through the not so tight doors of my room.I couldn't believe that I found a tick on me. It was in a...well, kind of a private place. ;-))) I didn't have a cotton swab to use with some liquid soap like Mrs Moosie told me about, but I did use some tissue and liquid soap and it worked just as well. The little bugger let loose in about a minute.I'm really glad Mrs Moosie told me how to get a tick to back out on it's own. I guess they don't like eating soap, so after swirling the soap around the body of the tick for a short while, they let go. It works great!! :-)))I also added 31 photos dated 11-22-06 and I added some photos to the journal entries too.I'm not done making my final decision in The Leaf Catching Game yet. The suspense builds!!!