Date: 2007-05-17
From: Thunderhill Shelter

To: U.S. 501
Miles today: 14.6

Although the day started out cold (we both had very cold fingers and were wishing for gloves) and we started hiking with our long-sleeved fleece tops the day turned out to be quite nice. Only toward the end was it very warm. Toto shed his heavier fleece jacket and long-sleeved shirt early in the day but my fleece is not as heavy so kept it on until just after noon. There was no rain today; in fact, I think it quit raining sometime last evening but I fell asleep early. Toto kept saying to me, "Dorothy, it's too early to go to sleep," but I went to sleep anyway. I woke up once very early this morning and forced my head out of the sleeping bag to look up at the sky and I saw stars. That was good in that there were no rain clouds but it was also making it colder without the cover of clouds. The shelter is at 3960 feet so I am sure it was down in the 30's last night. We thought the trail was going to be mostly down today but there was probably more up than down. There was a fair amount of rocks to hike over at times but generally the trail was not bad. U.S. 501 is at 680 feet after crossing the James River on a foot bridge. The James River Foot Bridge is the longest foot-use-only bridge on the A.T., 625 feet. When we were still on the bridge a man in the parking lot waved at us like he knew us and when we got to the parking area he met us and asked, "Glasgow or Big Island?" Wow! Here we had someone offering to drive us in either direction!! His name is Ken Wallace, a trail angel, that has a camper at the Wildwood Campground and stays there during the summer and loves to help hikers. We had his name and we were ready to call on him if we did not get a ride into town. We had decided to look at the Glasgow Motel and if we liked the room and the price was not to high we were going to stay there because everything we needed was nearby. But the room was not great and the price 49.95 including tax. The owner would not come down in price so we said no. Our other option nearby was the campground but a tentsite is $20 and included a shower and coin laundry. A restaurant and market were in the town of Big Island, 0.4 of a mile farther. And we heard that the campground is not very hiker friendly. Ken said he would take us to Buena Vista, another 9 miles farther west than Glasgow. The motel we are in, The Budget Inn, has a coin-operated washer and dryer and a Hardee's, Burger King, and Sub-Way nearby. Also, a Dominoes Pizza will deliver. A convenient store is across the street for snacks, ice cream, and coffee. Ken offered to slack-pack us tomorrow. He will pick us up about 7 and take us to the trail 9 miles from here on U.S. 60 and we will hike south back to U.S. 501 where we hiked to today, only from the south of 501. It is a 21 mile hike and Ken will pick us up at the river again and bring us back here to the motel. Then the next morning he will pick us up and take us back to the trail. We have laundry done once again, have showered, eaten at Burger King, and relaxed. We are ready for whatever tomorow brings. And it may bring rain. If the rain comes at least we will be coming back to this motel and will be able to dry out before starting out again the next day.      As we were walking across the road this evening to go to Burger King a car drove by and someone yelled out to us and pulled off the road into the parking lot. It was Gorilla, Truffles, and Ross. They were being shuttled back to Damascus for Trail Day this weekend. Ross and Truffles had said they were not going but changed their minds. The person driving gave us his card. He lives near Waynesboro and said for us to call him if we need anything. We have already decided to possibly call on him before we get to Waynesboro to slack-pack us. We'll have to see. If we do that we could possibly get to Waynesboro a day earlier. We saw many flowers early today. One area was full of mayapples. It looked like a groundcover of mayapples and many of the plants had beautiful flowers on them. Another area had both mayapples and pink trilliums. On one rocky climb today up between a thicket of rhododendrums I saw a patch of more than 20 pink ladyslippers. Toto missed them so I took a picture of them as proof that there were so many. Any other new flowers not seen before now were seen today. I hope to be able to get some pictures of them in the next day or two. Well, this is already too long. Time to close out this journal entry and make a few preparations for tomorrow. Life is Great!Dorothy & Toto