Date: 2016-03-27
From: Rock Gap

To: Winding Stair Gap/Haven's budget Inn
Miles today: 3.8
Weather: few clouds

At nite, in camp, we frequently have a campfire, and a great deal of socializing goes on around the campfire. There's just no telling what subject is going to get discussed. (one nite, we discussed bear poop.I kid you not.) The other nite, around the campfire, I said that a man who had hiked the entire AT the year before told some new hikers who were about to begin their AT hike that they could very quickly expect to lose their proper city manners, and by the end of the AT hike, they would CONSIDER eating out of dumpsters. I was very careful to emphasize that this habit would only be considered, not actually practiced. To my astonishment,I discovered that I was one of the few people standing around that campfire who had not (yet) indulged in this practice. I have very seldom been in a situation where I have been in the upper social crust of the group of people I hang out with, but this was one of those rare occasions. It did not take long for social snobbery to set in. As we sat around the campfire, drinking our water, I made sure my pinky finger was fully extended from my drinking cup as I sipped my water. I also affected a fake Boston Brahmin accent. I don't think I impressed any of the other campers, but I impressed the heck out of myself. William F. Buckley Jr. would have been mighty proud of me. Late that nite, in the privacy of my tent, I furitively wrote down the best places for dumpster diving in my journal. That way, should my financial situation take a turn for the worse, I'll know the best places to get dinner. In case you are wondering, the consensus of the group was that the dumpsters at Tim Horton restaurants are very fertile grounds for harvesting dinner. Starbucks and bakeries are not to be sneezed at either. One lady said that she dumpster dived at a potato chip factory.She had guests coming to a party,so she served them refreshments fresh from the dumpster.I desperately wanted to know where she got her potato chip dip, but I was afraid of what the answer might be.. Yesterday, a hiker told me an interesting story. Every year in May, there is a weekend party in Damascus, VA, where all the AT hikers get together to party and socialize. There was one middle aged man who had been basically living along the AT for 7-8 years, doing long sections of the trail, and just sort of lounging around when he wasn't hiking. He was a very social and amiable fellow.One day, a man who had hiked with this mysterious man for an extended period of time went home, turned on his tv, an watched an episode of "America's Most Wanted." There was a picture his amiable buddy on the tv set, with the notation that this man had embezzled 8 million dollars from Pepsi, and oh, by the way, there was a HUGE reward for information leading to the arrest of this man. So the amiable fellow who lived along the AT for many years found himself a new home behind bars, and another fellow found that he could afford to splurge as he hiked the AT. Happy Easter everybody. Yesterday, on 2 separate occasions, I was treated to Trail Magic, where trail angels presented me with colored, hard boiled Easter eggs. They were even thoughtful enough to include salt & pepper with the eggs!