Date: 2017-09-26
From: Ricefield shelter

To: Woods Hole hostel
Miles today: 18.3
Weather: few clouds

Technically, we've been in the South ever since crossing the Mason-Dixon line at the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, but despite going through some once-prosperous Rust Belt towns like Duncannon that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, we haven't really felt like we were in the real South.Until Perisburg.I was walking into town when a middle aged woman came rushing up to me as if I was a long-lost friend, introduced herself as Johnny and insisted me and my hiking buddies were welcome to come to her home -- a dilapidated shack and matching pool hall behind her -- to, as she put it, "drink beer, smoke pot and part-AY". (Yes, she really did say it as "part-AY")"We're in the South. Ain't nobody gives a shit what you do here!" she added, in a manner I believe was intended to be an endorsement. And she insisted on giving me a tour of the inside of her home and the powerless pool hall next door. I left with a promise that I'd extend her kind offer to the others in the tramily and we might be back. And by "might be back", I meant "will avoid at all costs". It was an odd interlude to an unusual morning. The others, who'd camped, were all dealing with the heavy dew overnight and I was the second one to hit the trail, just as the sun was rising at 7.20am. Sweetblood did spider-eating duties until the spring, 0.6 miles on, where I filled up with water, and after that the trail was amenable to extended conversations. Chatting to her about issues such as cultural appropriation -- ranging from everything from blackface (bad) to visiting tourists eating McDonalds instead of French cuisine in Paris (also bad) -- made the miles fly by to Pocahontas Road.From here, the trail did a classic PUD -- pointless up and down -- over a hill between here and the New River. At the far side of this was a second, unexpected, PUD that finally took us to the highway bridge over the New River, leading to Perisburg.As I was crossing this, I saw a guy on a bicycle with a trailer heading down the highway towards me. He saw me taking a photo of him and stopped to chat, which is how I found out that Hobo Harry was a metalworker who was heading from Buffalo in New York down to Florida to work on the rebuild after Hurricane Irma. He had been effectively homeless for the past five years, travelling from one place to another and donating most of his $30/hour salary to charity since he only needed about $200/month to live on. He was also clearly someone who hadn't had anyone to chat to for a while, based on the enthusiasm with which he launched into a conversation with me. And he was also clearly a kindred wandering spirit, so I suggested he join the tramily for our late breakfast in town.Soon after that, I encountered and eventually escaped from Johnny's unorthodox but no doubt heartfelt hospitality and met the others outside the Lion supermarket, where we had a first breakfast before Team KRT and Hobo Harry headed up to La Barranca, the Mexican restaurant. Around 1pm, we waddled back to the supermarket to meet Neville from Woods Hole Hostel, 10 trail miles ahead, who was going to drive our packs to the hostel so we could slackpack. Just like Johnny, Neville was also female -- maybe it was something to do with Perisburg? -- but she also made a rather better first impression and we were looking forward to staying at a place about which we'd been hearing gushing as a haven of comfort and awesomeness on the AT. I was very grateful to be slackpacking because even though fuelled by Mexican food, the climb out of the valley to the top of the ridgeline in the heat of the day was a beast. The idea of doing it with four days of food as well as the usual pack weight did not bear contemplation. There were a few distractions to this grind, including meeting a group of women hikers coming the other way whose leader was carrying a truly enormous machete "in case we meet a snake". It's defensive capabilities were somewhat muted when they took a full five minutes to coax the machete from its disintegrating scabbard when I asked for a photo.But mostly it was just a grind to Angel's Rest, a lookout on a rock with commanding views over the chemical factory we'd walked past earlier in the morning. After the viewpoint, we cruised along the standard flat forested AT ridgeline. We were hauling along because we knew that Woods Hole did an awesome communal organic meal each night from home-grown produce but weren't sure if it was 6pm or 7pm. As we got to within a couple of miles of the road crossing where we'd turn off the trail, Sriracha was hauling ass in his new ultra-lightweight Xero sandals when he tripped and ended up kicking a rock with his toes at full force. He's a pretty staunch hiker but he limped the rest of the way and we were all left wondered just how he'd be in the morning.Woods Hole was a hickory log cabin that proved to be as awesome as it had been billed. Neville's grandparents opened it up for AT hikers decades earlier and although it was originally the grandfather's idea, the grandmother had adopted it after his death. Now the grandmother had died, Neville was running it with her husband, a former AT thru-hiker called Michael. Both were professional massage therapists and she did free yoga sessions each evening on the lawn. We were elated to discover that Footprint, an Austrian hiker we'd last seen at McAfee's Knob, had been here doing work-for-stay for the past few days after messing up her foot through doing big miles with the goal to finish the trail before her six-month visa ran out. Together with half a dozen section hikers, there are a bunch of us here. Soon we'd settled in, showered and then helped Neville, Footprint and others in the kitchen, making then cooking pizzas and creating a salad. With a hand-holding circle in which we said what we were thankful for that day, we tucked into some truly wonderful food. It turned out we all had the same idea -- this is such a nice place, we ought to delay our departure tomorrow for as long as possible.Life is good.AT fact of the day: The Mexican restaurant was not the only food option in town, which featured an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant. But we deemed the price -- $6.95 -- to be too suspiciously low to trust what we were eating. And it was a good call, because Tuesdays at La Barranca is dollar taco day!