Date: 2015-06-20
From: Pass Mountain Hut 

To: Mountain Home Hostel 
Miles today: 7.1
Weather: overcast clouds

I was up early and on the trail at first light. The trail went up over South, West and North Marshall Mountains where there were breath catching views. Marching forth I flew up and over Compton Peak and started the descent to US 522. I so love being a thru-hiker as it is an incredible experience of pushing myself to new heights and feeling myself getting stronger and growing as an individual. It can truely be a spiritual journey if you let it be. Finally it was time to leave the Shenandoahs and I signed out at the Kiosk. I loved the wonderful shelters and the great trails. I stopped in at the Floyd Wayside Shelter for a quick break to check out the shelter and a privy break. The privy has a French door with a top and a bottom! The last half a mile to the road was filled with blackberries along a chain link fence, and I stuffed handful after handful in my mouth like a little child. I had a very red face when I was done! There was a kiosk with a panorama of colored drawings by children with a leave no trace theme which was very cool! There was a trail angel at the parking lot who insisted that she give me a ride to the hostel and we were soon there as it is just east, down the road (go right going north) and on the north side of the street. I had been having trouble with my shoes that I had found in a hiker box. Because of the wetness the top of my right foot and toes were being sanded off again! I stopped at Mountain Home to nero so my foot could heal and to find some new footwear. I loved the reception that hikers are given here. The hostel is owned by thru-hikers Anything & Possible, a wonderful couple who love the hiking community. I was greeted like a long missed friend and offered a big glass of lemonade and some delicious cookies! We made a run to town and I picked up a pair of Walmart hiking boots, socks and resupply. I even found a 6 pack of my favorite Texas beer - Shiner Prickly Pear cactus beer! At the hostel which has a history of being the slave quarters and then a county court house, we were walked to and given a guided tour of the main house (under restoration to be a Bed & Breakfast) which is rich in Civil war history. Union soldiers would take over the house as officers quarters and at another time a field hospital. A teenage daughter living there wrote much about the coming and going of Confederate troops including GENERAL Robert E. Lee and his generals, who camped in their yard only after asking permission. I kept an ice pack on my foot to reduce the swelling during the afternoon and then put liquid bandage on it which stung like crazy! It had worked the last time in Hotsprings and I was sure that it would work again. Storybook stopped for the night as well as two other hikers. What a wonderful, peaceful place. Wonderful black raspberry cobbler and icecream! :P Such soft beds and linens. I gracefully received an invitation to a safety meeting and responded with cold Shiner beer which was well liked all around! That evening I received some very sad news, Barbara Devivo had passed away the night before and her grandchildren and my wife were the ones to find her that way in the morning and were still in shock from the incident. It was very troubling to my wife to whom, she was a second mother, as she had spent a great deal of her childhood at their house with her best friend - Trista Devivo. We talked for a good while with my wife requesting that I come home for the funeral, but I didn't have the money to even make it one way there, let alone come back ,so I wasn't able to make it. This weighed heavily on my mind and heart as I lay down to sleep that night.