Date: 2005-05-15
From: Bland, Va.

To: 3.5 miles from Wapiti Shelter
Miles today: 22.5
Weather: moderate rain

We actually pulled about 26 miles today. We had quite a bit of road walking. We hadn't calculated that it was Sunday, and all the work traffic that we would try and hitch from didn't exist. The town was dead as a doornail. We ended up having to walk 2.5 miles to the Trail. Later on we had a half mile walk.The Extra Trail Estrial Miles have now reached 44.2 miles.We got up at 6, and went down to Dairy Queen for breakfast. I had a breakfast platter, and then we all had ice cream.We left Horizon there on the phone and took our leisurely stroll and did not hit the Trail until after 9 o'clock. We still made 14.5 miles by 1 o'clock. It was a wonderful Trail to walk on, like a gift. We couldn't ask for a better way to walk. It was probably good for OC1 to walk on because of the problem with his shins. He felt good the whole way.We hit Jenny Knob Shelter at 1 o'clock. I got there a few minutes ahead and I got some water and decided to cook up some spaghetti. Vern walked in while I was doing that. As we were getting ready to walk out, Horizon walked in. He's looking to do 26 miles today. He has to get to Pearisburg, Va. on Tuesday at 9:30. He has a phone conference at school. Apparently, he's still in high school and he's walking the AT as part of a school project. The idea today was to only do 18 miles and try to get to Va. 606 to where Trent's grocery store is. It's a cool little store that sells nails, shotgun shells, ice cream, pizza and sandwiches. All sorts of bizarre stuff. They have a sauna and a tanning salon in there as well. It's an all purpose, all you can do country store. We did manage to hit it at 4 o'clock. Real good timing, considering that we didn't try to walk hard. The intention was to get some food there, and camp close to the road and settle there with the 18+ miles. In fact, the lady at the register told us that they had a little campground there that we could tent at for $5 and that there were already some through hikers there. OC1 and I discussed it, and decided that we would push on. He got a little ambitious, and thought that we would walk the additional 8 miles to make a 26 mile day and camp out at Wapiti Shelter.   We kind of tired out somewhere in between and ended up 3.5 miles short and pitched our tents just before dark. We still got 22.5 miles in today, which was good for a day that we didn't try very hard.This afternoon, while we were walking on the Trail, I noticed something. I said to OC1, " Do you notice anything?" He said, "What?" I answered, "There's leaves on all the trees, there's grass everywhere and flowers. It's summer now."Just that quickly, it just seemed to happen that it's not just Spring, but Summer.When you walk into the woods, at lower elevations, and it's dark because the trees are so covered in leaves and it blocks out the sun. At some points during the day, it looked like it was going to rain, but at that point, when I noticed the change, it was bright sun outside.We last started to notice a weather change like that right over the Grayson Highlands, where it became Spring in 1 day. It went from Winter and nights in the 30's to being 80's in the day and 60's at night.Last time I through-hiked in 2003, I started with a 2 day difference. The difference is pretty incredible. All of the black snakes, the roots of blown down trees, salamanders and millipedes I saw last timeon the Trail; I hardly saw in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennesee this time. I'm starting to see them now. Everything is green now. To the point where I put my raincoat on, on the way down into Bland, to try to keep the poison ivy off of me. Last time, going therough Chestnut Knob Shelter was ass biting cold. Everything was dead then, this time everything was green.Trail Days was going on in Damascus this weekend, and it was evident on the Trail. It has been a very lonely Trail. We didn't pass anyone today and only a few people yesterday.It seems that the section hikers have taken note of that, because the few people that we did pass were section hikers.I expect that to change tomorrow, Monday, when all those people that are in Damascus are going to be hitching out of there and getting dumped on the Trail where ever they left off.That's it for tonight.