Date: 2016-05-13
From: Damascus, VA for Trail Days 

To: Damascus, VA for Trail Days 
Miles today: 0.0

May 13, 2016 - The first official day of Trail Days was an early one. As usual, I woke up around 6:30 and headed straight to Mojo's for round 3. I was hoping I'd beat the crowd and I did. Unfortunately, they had a special Trail Days menu so I couldn't get the breakfast quesadilla, which I had been craving - the cinnamon bun and a breakfast platter were more than enough, though. After breakfast, I just wandered around town watching the gear and food vendors setting up until I found myself back at Tent City. I walked right into Moonshine! It was great seeing this guy again. We found another hiker feed for lunch, entered every raffle we could find to try to win Survivor a new pack (his was literally ruined and completely held together by carabiners - the gear repair guy was visibly taken aback). I was in the market for a warm weather sleeping bag to temporarily replace my 20 degree down bag. It's true that I do have a 40 degree synthetic bag at home, but it's too small in the shoulders, the zipper sucks and it's not down. If this bag is going to be my bed for 3 months, I wanted to be comfortable. Jacks R Better offered a 40 degree 800 fill down quilt (basically a down blanket that you can wrap around you and loosely secure like a sleeping bag) for $190 that was only 18 ounces! That's a no brainer that would reduce my pack weight by over 2 lbs! I couldn't wait to test it out. Moonshine, Constantine, Walking Bear, Fireball, and myself then proceeded to purchase a few cases of beer and headed down to a hidden waterhole on the river we heard about from a former thru-hiker. We swam, shot gunned a few brewskies and had probably the most fun I had all weekend. Next up was the hot dog eating contest. When I signed up in the morning, I was the only one on the list, but over 30 people had enlisted. Since there were only 5 spots, I was very unfortunately not chosen to compete. Stretch took down 7.5 hot dogs in only 3 minutes. I still think I could've done that. The rest of the afternoon was spent in Tent City hopping from campsite to campsite and catching up with all the other hikers. I also met many new people, but the sheer quantity of trail names became overwhelming. Here are the few I remember: Chunks (he blew chunks early on in the trip after drinking too much), Stripes, Mother Theresa of the Forest Animals (she rescued an abandoned dog who is now at home waiting for her to finish the hike), Navigator, Finch, Fern, Thin Mint, Timon (crazy jealous), Pocahontas (this got me crazy excited as she is one of my top Disney princesses), Jingle, Hoodlum, Wildcard, Bartender, Tony Good Looks, and loads more that I just can't remember. For a few weeks now I've had other hikers tell me there is another Mountain Goat on trail, a female Mountain Goat. I finally caught up to her in the Chinese buffet in Marion when I sensed her walk through the door. Well, thinking it would be fun to have a showdown, or "Goat Roast" as I called it, on Trail Days, I challenged her to the best of 7 tasks for the status of Alpha Goat. Since I was ahead of her on trail, I wrote the challenges across 4 shelter registers to build up the excitement. Here were the challenges:1. Fastest to climb a hill with a pack on2. Fastest to hang a bear bag3. Fastest to hitch a ride 4. Fastest to set up and take down a tent 5. Guessing the weights and prices of common resupply items chosen by a third party 6. A Chopped camp cooking showdown with ingredients chosen by a third party. Judges to be determined. 7. Fastest to eat a 7 lb can of chocolate pudding we found at Food City with two partners of the contestant's choice. However, when I saw the other Mountain Goat at Trail Days, she basically shot me down - she said she enjoyed reading the messages, but seemed totally uninterested in the showdown. Needless to say, people were bummed. Peach and I even lost all interest in eating the can of pudding, which we knew would be disgusting but we're excited for anyway. Anyway, later that night, we headed to Bobo's in town for karaoke. Now, if you know me well, my two biggest fears are the ocean / sharks and singing karaoke. While there was no way in hell I was singing, it turned into a damn good time. Finally, all hikers assembled at the drum circle for at least 5 hours of shenanigans. The last thing I remember at 4 am was the cops shutting the thing down. Otherwise, I don't know that it would have ever stopped. The picture is of the drum circle at I have no idea what time.