Date: 2005-04-28
From: somewhere (I'll fix this soon)

To: somewhere (I'll fix this soon)
Miles today: 0.0

Let's start off with last night, kinda crazy. Can you say "COLD" boysand girls? But odder than the unusual cold in late april was theconversation around 10 or 11. The silence was broken with a"Hike-ku"."What?" Ku responded."Did you tap me?""Uhh, do you smell a skunk?""Yeah".Sure enough, I too could smell a skunk, but I let it slide. We'llcome back to this later boys and girls, but for now, onto today.Once again, YAY town. So, here we go again, man days that we hit townare such a motivation. It was COLD again this morning, and it was aLONG morning. I don't think we got out of the shelter until somewherearound 9:15 and that's late in hiker time. They say Virginia is flatand that's not exactly true. Virginia definitely has its hills, thereare just so many switchbacks that it barely seems like you're going upmost of the time.Shortly out of the shelter, we hit "the scales". I expected some rockbalanced on another rock in a see-saw type fashion, but the scales arereally just some horse corrals and fences. As we crested the hill wespied an RV at the bottom, immediately the discussion came. "I wonderif it's trail magic", "I see stickers on the car, maybe they're ATstickers", "Man, it'd be great if they had breakfast cooking". Sometimes you just build yourself up for disappointment. Swan playedthe roll of diplomat between hiker and non-hiker culture very well,but unfortunately the two gentlemen working on the undercarriage oftheir RV were not interested in sharing any of it's contents. We didget a surprise, there are bathrooms at the scales with trash cans. Sosome of us dropped some weight, in a few ways. And we did get tothrow the frisbee around for a few minutes, we're getting to do thatmore and more every day.After the scales, we hit the last 5000 foot peak. I've heard thatMount Rogers is the last 5000 footer until New Hampshite, butwingfoot's guide (which has a less-than-desireable accuracy rating,especially lately) lists Pine Mountain as 5000 feet exactly. Soregardless, we blew threw Pine Mountain.On the way I passed a sobo flip flopper from Carlisle, he's a coolguy, but as is my habit, I forgot his name. Old Orchard shelterseemed like a good enough place for lunch. In the shelter register wehear tales of bubbletoes and an encounter with an unknown smallanimal, presumably a skunk, or as buttah and proteus signed, a "swamprat".We didn't even bother to stop at the Hurricane shelter, it was off thetrail further than we could see, and that was too far. After we metback up at the side trail to the Hurrican shelter, tunes and I hikedtogether, we've got similar personalities and interests, and he likesmetal, so the conversation flowed pretty freely.Around 4, right as it was just beginning to rain, Tunes and I hit theroad to start hitching. We talked it over and decided to starthitching before Swan, Buck, and Hike-ku caught up. As Tunes was stilldigging around is his pack, I lazily sat on the curb and threw a thumbout at a silver ford heading the opposite direction, figuring thatthere was no way in hell this car would stop.I've never been so glad to be wrong in my life. The car stopped,turned around, and an attractive blonde woman rolled down the window. As my imagination took off on a tangent and I told her where we weregoing, she explained that we reminded her of Colorado where she usedto live, she then explained that she was a drug companyrepresentative, and that it'd take just a minute to move her stuff tothe trunk. Well, at this point, here come our other three out of thewoods, and we ask her how many of us we can cram in there, and shesays "as many as you can fit".Sweet, we somehow manage to cram 5 hikers, 5 packs and one driver intoone car. Then something amazing happened, our driver's commentsturned from excited to somewhat disgusted. "I'm sorry, but man youguys smell". It started off that way, but soon turned to "Eff, youguys really stink, I'm trying not to puke. God bless her heart, ourstink nearly made this woman vomit, but she drove us the whole way tothe hostel. We evacuated her vehicle, took her card and picture andthanked her for her troubles. Molly, you effin' rule, and you'redefinitely getting a Katahdin picture from at least me. So after ourstinktastic experience in the vehicle, we're hanging out in thepavilion near the baptist church and supposed hostel debating how toget ahold of the hostel.By this point it's raining, hard, cold rain. My cell phone was noluck with reception. Buck decides to try his phone and get's ready tothrow on his rain jacket. Suddenly he exclaimed "Ahh, it's myjacket".He didn't have to say what "it" was, we could smell the skunk smellalready. So apparently somehow last night, Buck's jacket wasunfortunate enough to scare a skunk, who quickly sprayed on hisjacket.We all have a good laugh, then as swan begins to trek down a hill insearch of cell reception, we hear her yell back up the hill someinaudibles. Those inaudibles apparently indicated that swan found thehostel, and bubbletoes and rawhide.So we check in and then hit the Troutdale Trading Post, which is acombination of a restaurant and grocery store. Man, that may be thebest bacon double cheeseburger I've had in a while.Laundry, phone calls home, and pack planning followed the restaurant,you know, the typical. Now I'm getting ready to hit the sack in anice heated "bunk room" on the perfectly empty floor. Man, that bacondouble cheeseburger was good.