Date: 2016-06-27
From: Front Royal Hostel

To: Tom Floyd Shelter
Miles today: 1.4
Weather: broken clouds

On Sunday I flew down from Boston to Washington D. C. where I spent the night at my friend Alex's house. Alex is another aviation friend and he offered to fly me back out to the trail in his plane on Monday. After making a grocery run in the morning to resupply, I packed everything back up and we headed for the airport. Montgomery County airport is located just north of Washington and they have a great restaurant at the airport where we had lunch before departing. Once we took off we headed west for Harper's Ferry in order to circle the ATC headquarters and then south to Front Royal. What would be an hour and a half drive at best was less than a 30 minute flight with no traffic! General aviation at its finest!!!After landing I called the Grateful Greenpeace Guy again for a shuttle to his hostel, and he showed up in just a few minutes. As I threw my pack in his van a voice called out, "Is that Ranger?" To my amazement One Hit Wonder was sitting in the van heading for the hostel as well. In addition, a young woman was in the van and it turned out to be Caroline, who I met on my first morning back in North Carolina at Carter Gap Shelter. One Hit Wonder had been off the trail for 4 weeks with knee problems, and had a new trail name - Lazarus. (He's back from the dead). Caroline also had a trail name now - Puppy Mill. I was confused by that one but she got it the day she met me because she left behind a guy she had been walking with. He was so sad about being left that he got the name Pound Puppy, and she was now Puppy Mill.Lazarus and Puppy Mill were staying at the hostel and trying to get into the doctor to get some of their moving parts looked at. I was going to try to get a few miles in so I took off once I got to the hostel and walked the half mile blue blaze trail back to the AT. I was once again northbound on the AT and almost immediately passed the sign for the northern boundary of Shenandoah National Park. I was done with the Shenandoah! It was less than a mile to the first shelter and to my surprise Karma came along behind me. It was a fun reunion, I hadn't seen her since Fontana. Through the magic of Facebook and Instagram I had been following her and her trail family as they cruised up the trail behind me. Karma and her compatriots were doing huge miles and were probably averaging 22+ miles per day.We made it to the shelter just before a thunderstorm hit and found Alice there eating her dinner. Another nice surprise! Alice, Karma, and Lazarus were half the fun trail family I met back at Sassafras Gap, North Carolina in early May. Now they almost out of Virginia!A couple of other hikers were also at the shelter, Cruzer and Dozer. We all claimed some space and prepared for the thunderstorm to hit. As the rain started coming down an older couple showed up, and really needed a spot in the shelter as they didn't carry a tent to save weight. We all squeezed in a little more and made room for them. More and more hikers kept showing up as the rain came down. The shelter was maxed out so some set up their tents and some chose to move on and head into Front Royal for a hotel.As we talked, we found that the older couple, named Morning Song and Towhee, were section hiking the AT and were close to finishing it all after 15 years. Their daughter and her family and their son had joined them on this section, their final section of Virginia. They were a great family and very supportive of their parents/grandparents goal.The rain finally stopped around 9 and we fell into our sleeping bags. I had only done a little more than a mile today, but it was good to be back working toward the goal, the goal of walking to Maine.