Date: 2008-05-16
From: Damascus, VA

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Eric and I woke up around 8 o'clock this morning and headed over to an allyou can eat pancake breakfast that was being held in the Little Leaguefield. It was cold and windy and misty outside, but the pancakes sure weregood. Next we went to Augusta's B&B, where we stayed for 2 nights when we werehere a couple of weeks ago. They were holding a package for us, so we wentin and talked to Sissy for a little while. From there, we headed into town toward where all of the food and gearvendors were set up, and on the way we passed by a presentation gettingready to start by Gene Espy, the second person to ever thru-hike theAppalachian Trail. We stepped inside and listened to him talk about hisexperiences from 1951 and we got to see some of the actual gear that hebrought with him on his hike. He told many funny stories and made us feelglad that we're hiking now, with all of today's modern conveniences, insteadof 50 years ago. Next we went to the post office to pick up 2 more packages that were waitingfor us, and finally over to the vendors. Most of the major backpacking gearmanufacturers have booths here, both selling gear and doing repairs. Wewalked along, checking out special Trail Days' prices, and running into lotsof people we hadn't seen in a while. One particular vendor, Hennessy Hammocks, was having a big sale. Eric and Ihave always been interested in using hammocks instead of a tent. Many peoplewe know use them on the trail and absolutely love them; they're supposed tobe extremely comfortable. Their sale prices were so good that we couldn'tresist and so we each bought a new hammock! I can't wait to try them out!In the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) tent we saw Bob Peoples fromKincora Hostel. He is one of the main organizers of the volunteer trailmaintenance crew "Hard Core," which convenes every year on the Sunday andMonday immediately following Trail Days. Bob was recruiting currentthru-hikers to sign up for this year's crew, and we like Bob so much that wewere unable to say "no." So Eric and I are now signed up to go do some trailmaintenance for two days with a bunch of other hikers. We provide our ownbreakfasts and lunches, and they provide our dinners and all transportationto the trail and to Kincora Hostel where we'll be staying at night, and theyeven guarantee us a ride back to where we left off on the trail before TrailDays, which in our case is Pearisburg, VA. We first learned about Hard Core when we stayed at Cloud 9 Hostel, back inHiawassee, Georgia. We heard about it again from Bob Peoples, when we stayedat Kincora Hostel, and so we had been considering joining it for a while. I'mvery excited that we did; a lot of other hikers that we know will bevolunteering as well. In the afternoon, we went to see a movie made by a thru-hiker namedWildflower. There are 3 major long-distance hiking trails in the U.S.-- theAppalachian Trail (AT), the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and the ContinentalDivide Trail (CDT). The AT is the shortest of the trails, at 2,175 miles.Last year, Wildflower thru-hiked the CDT, completing her "Triple Crown,"meaning she has now thru-hiked all 3 trails. She and her hiking partner madea movie of their CDT hike that was very moving, and made me want to go hikeout there even more than I want to hike the AT. Ha. I know, I know... Ishouldn't let myself get any other crazy ideas. But the trails out west aresoo beautiful and unlike anything we've seen. One can always dream, right?:-)So far, Trail Days has just been one big hiker reunion. The following arejust some of the people we've run into:Motorbutt, Frog, and Crutch, who we hadn't seen since Hiawassee, GA;Blythe, aka Barfight, who we hadn't seen since Franklin, NC; Jon and Stephanie, who we hadn't seen since Fontana Dam; Hercules and Fal, the couple who gave us trail magic at their house at AllenGap; And Hotwheels, Shutterbug, and their dog Corley, who we also hadn't seensince the trail magic at Allen Gap.We also ran into Bahama Dave, who I think we haven't seen since Hot Springs,and who was only section-hiking the trail up to Damascus. He finished hishike weeks ago and came back just for Trail Days. We hung out with him for a couple of hours, eating pasta from a free dinner for hikers, and then sitting in the back of his van, having a drink, and watching all of the hikers out in Tent City. We had a great day, today. There is so much to see and do here; it's veryexciting, but also exhausting. I'm off to bed, now. I hope I can get somesleep-- there are so many hikers around, drinking, singing, dancing, andbeing all kinds of loud. This might not be the most relaxing weekend, but itsure will be fun!