Date: 2003-06-03
From: Doc's Knob Shelter

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 7.8
Weather: light rain

Today was a big day. We were getting out of Southwest Virginia and into Central Virginia. Although I was more excited about getting into town and doing laundry which I hadn't done since Damascus. It was a rainy morning, but I didn't mind walking in it knowing I would be able to clean and dry my clothes soon. The long fairly steep decent into town was treacherous. It was extremely muddy and slick. I could see elongated boot tracks where someone had slid down a certain distance, and a couple really messy tracks where someone had obviously fallen down. I had only fallen once this trip. Well this decent made for a second and third fall. One I just slipped, but one was pretty ugly. I was covered in mud. Oh well. I walked down into Pearisburg and hit the road. I decided to start walking the mile or so into town since I figured no one would pick up such a dirty person. I walked on to the post office to pick up my desperately needed food box and started to walk on to the hostel which was a fairly long walk to the outskirts of town. I walked as far as the first street when some guy in a truck rolled down his window to ask if we were going to the hostel. Bucky and I happily agreed. We claimed our spots at the hostel which had a row of matresses on the floor in a loft. It was an old barn rebuilt on the grounds of the catholic church. It had a little bathroom, library area and kitchen. It also had a really nice deck. We headed down toward the laundry and were picked up by the guy that runs the hostel who had an annoying little dog. He had picked up Wigglestick, he dropped his stuff off and Bill (the caretaker) gave us a ride down to the laudromat. After that it was the chinese buffet, not a particularly good one, but it seemed great to me. I ate till I felt sick and waddled slowly back to the hostel. Wigglestick sat down to talk to a girl section hiker named Bubbles. They hit it off and sat there for awhile talking. I took advantage of a shower. Bubbles had her car there so she was happy to give us a ride down the the All Sports Cafe, the sketchy little bar in town which was mostly full of hikers, many of whom I didn't know. We hung out there for a while. I went across the street to call my parents on a pay phone at the gas station. As I was hanging up a car pulled up to me and a girl got out with a paper sandwich bag in her hands. She said I found this in my car and I don't know what to do with it. Can you do something. I looked into the bag and inside it was a baby possum. What? I said that I guessed I could try and do something with it. What does one do with a baby possum. Dinner? She did make me promise to try and feed it something and not to kill it. I agreed and they drove off. What could happen next. I walked back over to the bar and handed the bag to Bubbles and told her to let her maternal insticts take over. she was afraid at first then looked inside and started calling it cute. I told the incredible story of what had just happened to me. She asked another hiker who was from Alabama about it and he picked it right up determined its gender (girl) and said that possums make great pets. we went back to the hostel and tried to give it some milk which it refused and moved it into fancier digs, a box with an old t shirt in it. How much wierder could things get?