Date: 2005-05-16
From: Va. 311, Catawba, Va.

To: US220, Va. 816
Miles today: 19.6

Today is Monday May sixteenth. We spent last night actually in Salem Virginia, at a Baymont Inn on I-81 exit 141. We planned on spending the night in the car, when we left one car at the Econo-lodge in Daleville, and then drove down into Catawba Virginia. We thought we would eat at the Homeplace and sleep near the VA 311 trailhead. Finally get there and on a Sunday, Homeplace is only open till six, and it was like 6:30. So we said what do we want to do. Well we are going to town to get food. And then we started looking at motels, but we went in and we ate at the Country Cooking. Which was nice. It was very similar to Ryan¢s and Western Sizzler and Shoney's , just one of those bad places, all you can eat. And then we went to the Salem, Virginia Baymont, we had a coupon, for $39.95. With tax it came to $44.75. Very nice room, I talked the hotel into a king size bed. And I got to watch my Survivor finale so I was up until 11:00pm, but hopefully tonight I'll sleep well.Anyhow, got up at five this morning and got everything together, and we had breakfast in the room, and then we were on the road by 5:45, and we're at the parking lot around 6:00am at Va 311, Catawba, Va., on the trail at 6:15. And by 6:45 we're at the first shelter, which used to be called Boy Scout shelter, but we went down to it, and it's now John's Spring shelter in memory of someone who committed suicide when he was a thru hiker. He had a dog that hiked with him. We spent about ten minutes there, got back on a trail went to the next shelter, Catawba shelter. They say its two miles and we were there at 7:30, that doesn't make sense to me. We went in and said Hi, There are about three guys in there. And we went back to the shelter trail head. We sat and did a few things for about ten minutes, then walk by a camp site with maybe three people camping. Then kept walking and a quarter to eight we were at the overlook, first overlook looking into Catawba Valley. And we had passed a gal coming down with two dogs, she'd been up McAfee Knob this morning, but she had to go back home. She¢s taking a day off, going to work in the yard. And one hiker passed us, and then we got up here to McAfee Knob at 8:15. We talked to the hiker who passed us and he took our pictures and his trail name was Montana. This is just a beautiful day. there are some white fluffy, fluffy clouds, but other than that, it¢s totally blue sky, sunshine, and bright. cool day so far, and it¢s supposed to stay that way. McAfee Knob is just looking straight north out into Catawba valley with North Mountain on the left and whatever this mountain is we are hiking on, Catawba Mt. And you can kind of see the depression, the bowl, way off to the right here, some water down there now. And just on the other side those mountains is our rental car.  We stayed at McAfee knob longer than we should, had a great time talking to thru hikers. Some of the hikers we talked to Rabbit, Montana and then Leviathan. we talked to him for a little bit. He¢s from Somerset, Kentucky, and he's an English major. He kind of went into what Leviathan was all about. With the religious meanings and the philosophy of John Hobbes. Possibly Terry knew what he was talking about. Terry says, "not a clue". And then we headed off, had to go back to where we got off trail, and then we come back and the trail was real close by another part of the knob. So we spent another ten minutes looking out there. Talking to some people. Talked to a gal on the trail, Vision Quest when we stopped at the shelter. We¢re at Campbell shelter. I think at 9:45am. And that was supposed to be 4.2 miles. And then we stopped again to do our duty. We took a twenty minute rest and ate our sandwich from last night¢s supper. From 10:55am to eleven fifteen. And then about eleven thirty we came into Brickley's gap at 7.3 miles. And now we're on our way to Tinker Cliffs. And it's just a beautiful beautiful day. Just got to keep going and eventually make it to the car tonight.  Stayed at Tinker cliffs from 12:30 to 1:05pm. And had our second sandwich of the day. And then I think it was like one thirty when we got to the intersection with Andy Layne trail in Scorched Earth Gap, and we have another 0.6 miles to Lamberts Meadow Shelter. seems to me like we got in the shelter at 2:00pm. And we took another rest. Vision Quest was there. I had to use the bathroom real bad, the privy. And we took our shoes off. So while we were there, "Buttah" came along and he had a friend who just started with him this morning. And he's going to use the Privy for the first time on the trail. Vision Quest was talking about getting down to the outfitter and "Buttah" was asking what the deal was. she said she wanted an outfitter to look at these Leki hiking poles she bought Friday at Trail days. She wanted an adjustment, but didnt know how. He said he worked at an outfitter for over a year. So he took them apart and showed her things and showed her the correct way to use them on the trail. So it was interesting. We stay half hour there, so we get out of there at 2:30. And we also looked at Buttahs trail profile and that looked pretty nice the rest the way. That made us happy. So we're on trail now. At four o'clock we found a nice place under a pine tree along the Ridge edge, overlooking the great valley and we laid down the Tarp, and then we laid ourselves down and it felt so good. We stayed there for like twenty five minute break. We left at four twenty five and we got to, what we think might have been Angel's Gap, at 4:45. And five o'clock we passed by boulders that could've been the Haystack Rock. And now, 5:05 we're going under power lines and we're going in a good direction, we can't wait to see our car, and what time it'll be, who knows.We had a long long long long long walk. Along the ridge then it turned south and kept going, and we say, "oh my God this is ridiculous, we went more than half way around the circle". And they kept us up on the ridge; we went under the power line. Finally it started to turn, start coming down, and then we had to go under these other power lines and they were making terrible terrible noise. Something like 7:00 pm we were at more power lines, I don't remember anymore. We saw our car a long long time before we ever got to come down, like hours. And then finally they bring you down and actually that wasn't too bad. And then you get on an old road and flattened out, you thought we are going to get there, but it just kept going and going. Meet this couple and I had asked them how much longer, Oh you are almost there. Just another mile. You keep going on, you cross railroad tracks, you cross over big concrete bridge in the middle of nowhere over a nice creek. Then you start up. And then you turn and up and down and turn, my God, you thought it never would end. And then at 8:05, we came out to US 220. And went over to the Econo lodge and there was Vision Quest. She said she just got there, not to long before. She was waiting to go in there to get a room, and then I said, is there any place you want to go, we can take you here in town. She thought about it, "If you don't mind, take me down to Bojangles". So we said sure, we went down there and we got ourselves something to eat too. And now we are on our way to pick up the other Car and hopefully go back down to the Baymont Inn that we enjoyed so much last night.