Date: 2011-09-14
From: Front Royal, VA

To: Daleville, VA
Miles today: 241.2
Weather: clear sky

We now have 33% left of the trail! I'm not sure how to feel about that because we still have 720 miles left, but the end is closer than the beginning ...The first part of VA can be summed up like this: a zero day, hiking 103 miles over 6 days through Shenandoah National Park (SNP) in the rain, and more surprise visitors. We took a zero in Front Royal, VA, at Fire Marshall's house and were spoiled immensely by his family. We also took care of some gear issues, ate awesome BBQ, Apple House (the family's reataurant) donuts, cookies and other specialties, ate super awesome Thai food, drank 9 gallons of sweet tea and rested up. Which, of course, made it very hard to get back on the trail. Especially because the 30% chance of rain translated into torrential downpouring ...Shenandoah was pretty exciting to walk through, except we did get a lot of rain or threat of rain. In fact, the park got at least 4 inches of rain in just 2 days! Needless to say, the weather could have been better. We basically got a very spooky view of the Shennies.When we did have some break from the weather, we saw some incredible views.One high point of SNP was having occasional access to food/restaurants. We took full advantage when we could.Wildlife has been abundant, to say the least, in SNP. 8 Bears (2 of the bears were up in the trees and scurried down backwards when they heard us walk by! Man they move fast!)27 Deer (you could walk right up to them and they won't budge. Deal keeps asking them to carry his pack, but hasn't succeeded.)The shelters in SNP were built in the 1940s and it shows. There are many residents, like vampire bats, generations of mice, and wolf spiders. However, Deal still reluctantly chose to sleep IN 2 of the shelters because of the rain and crowds. When possible, though, he set up the tent in the shelter to protect us ...We also had a great surprise from our friends from Danville while we were in the park. Cell service was pretty much nonexistent, but I turned on my phone one day and got several messages that two of them spontaneously decided to meet us on the trail for a night! Not only did they bring cherry cokes, but they cooked us one of their specialty backpacking meals - chicken & dumplings! It would have been enough just to share a night of camping with them, but food we didn't have to cook or clean up ourselves was a bonus!For the past week, we've been walking through the Blue Ridge Mountains in central VA. The weather has been great (but it is supposed to rain the next few days and cool down). The climbs have been more difficult in this section, but the views have been so worthwhile! We did have one medical mishap over the weekend. After 1300 miles, something was bound to happen and hopefully this will be the ONLY issue, as opposed to a copperhead bite, which happened to a fellow SOBO in front of us this week.Here's what happened. Last Friday, we were hiking up thePriest, our first mountain over 4,000 feet since New Hampshire. We all had our iPods on to power  us up. All of the sudden, I saw what I can only describe as a bee on steroids come flying at me. By the time I could react, the insect landed on my eye and stung or bit me! Immediately, I felt immense pain and burning and started freaking out. Deal couldn't find a stinger, but could tell I got bit. We now think it was an Asian Giant Hornet that bit, but not stung me (don't google it though ... very scary!).That night, I was in a little bit of pain, but the swelling around my eye wasn't too bad. The next morning was another story. My eye was pretty much swollen shut! But I've been taking an antihistamine and steroid and I'mdefinitely on the mend! Onward and southward!