Date: 2017-05-08
From: Knoxville, TN

To: Calf Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 7.7
Weather: broken clouds

5/08/17 Rockfish Gap, VAMiles hiked: 5552.0 Miles to go: 1638.1My day didn't get off to a good start. I was supposed to leave Knoxville at 12:30 AM on a Greyhound bus. The only problem was that at 12:30 AM the bus was sitting in Nashville waiting on a driver. I ended up spending the night sleeping on a bench in the bus station with four other people, only two of which were other passengers. The bus finally arrived at 5:00 AM. I ended up buying one of the non-passengers breakfast out of the vending machines. At first, based on the smell, I thought he was a thru hiker. Then I realized he was not carrying hiking poles.  He'd asked me for 20¢, but I had no change. I watched as he asked everyone else to no avail. He then checked all the machines for change. He was obviously hungry and not just scrounging for change. I then noticed that the machines had debit card readers, so I offered to buy him some food. All he wanted was cheese and crackers and pop tarts. I offered to buy him more; but, he said that was enough. Unfortunately, the bus didn't pull out until 6:40 AM. What's worse is that they combined the 12:30 AM bus with the 6:30 AM bus. The problem is that the 12:30 bus was an express bus; whereas, the 6:30 bus was a local. Therefore, my 8 hr bus ride became a 9.5 hr bus ride. Bummer. Last year, a 10 hr flight from Germany to Washington DC with my daughter and her one year old twin boys turned into a three day ordeal. So, in comparison, an 8 hr bus trip turning into a 15 hr trip is nothing in comparison. I just feel bad making 1st Sgt lose another day on the trail.Once we got rolling, the bus ride was actually quite comfortable and the small towns were interesting. We just stopped at too many of them! After many hours and many small towns, we finally arrived in Charlottesville a little after 4 pm. In ten minutes I had my bag, had summoned an Uber car, and was on my way at to Rockfish Gap. 1st Sgt was waiting at the gap and it was like we'd never missed a beat as we took off walking and talking just like normal. He filled me in on all the trail gossip of who was where on the trail and who had gone home and so forth. It was 7.7 miles to the shelter and after 5 pm when we started walking, so we had to hoof it to get there before dark.It was amazing how different the woods looked after being gone for over three weeks. The trees had leafed out and the ground cover had filled in. You could no longer look out and see grand vistas. We were hiking in the proverbial "green tunnel" you hear so much about. We didn't see any other thru hikers; however, we saw several day hikers. I was a little winded on some of the uphills; but, all in all, I don't think my hiker legs suffered too much during my time off trail. We arrived at the shelter just as it was getting dark - hooray for us - and discovered why we hadn't seen any thru hikers on the trail. They were all here! Every flat spot had a tent - about 6 or 7. It wasn't quite dark yet; but, most people were already in bed. One person who was still awake was Ramsey Bolton! How cool - we hadn't seen him since Damascus. I was glad I had switched out to my hammock when I was home because there were no good tent sites left. I found appropriately spaced trees and set up my hammock. It was already pretty dark and I hadn't set it up since last Fall; but, luckily I remembered how it all went together. 1st Sgt opted to stay in the shelter since only one other person was in it. It's now 10 pm and everyone else is in bed. I am fed, my bear bag is hung, and I am in my hammock with all my clothes on. There is a frost warning for tonight and none of us are carrying winter gear. So, it might prove to be a chilly night, especially since I don't have an underquilt for my hammock. It's great to be back!