Date: 2016-11-12
From: Wilson creek shelter

To: Daleville, VA
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: clear sky

Never took a photo today so here's another from yesterday.So in addition to the planned short day today we get an unexpected but very welcome donut day tomorrow! (Thanks again James for the phrase). This morning I realized it was Saturday and the post office closed at noon, so we have to wait til Monday to get our packages. Also the outfitters closed Sunday too. It feels kind of like a snow day. Last night I got enough sleep but really didn't sleep much. I watched the sunset, then the moon and constellations move across the sky, then the moon set and the sun rise. It was a busy night. All the while I had cell service so looked up all the daleville deets and realized our mistake. It was a short, pretty hike through ravines and we got to the brewery road by 3 after a really late start, which was also nice. Abs as a bonus tealeaf and buckshot were only about 5 miles behind us so met us at the brewery. That was a lot of fun. They had arepa truck there so I got to dust off my venezuelan and chatted it up with the two dudes. One of them asked to play my guitar and he was really good, and nice. He said he actually used to have a full sized cordoba and loved it. I've only played the mini, but also love it and might be a lifetime brand convert.  He list his in Venezuela when he left it in his friends car which got towed. Then the usual deal with the towing is they steal everything from the car and you never get that back but if you pay enough you might get the car back. So that was it for his cordoba, although he now plays a 1960s Gibson dreadnought of some sort that his uncle just gave to him. So that could be worse. But man things have gotten so bad in Venezuela. It's really sad. I remember chavez' televised rants from 10 years ago and man do they sound a lot like Trump. Scary. But now it's even worse. This guy's friend working the truck with him just got to the US and speaks zero English. He was assaulted by some gang trying to steal his car and kill him, but fought back ending up slamming the guys hand in the door and hitting it with a hammer to get him to drop the gun.  So he barely escaped with his life but had to leave the country immediately or he'd definitely be killed by the gang. He left his wife and daughters behind and his church is helping to hide and relocate them while they figure out what to do. I really want to get back into working with undocumented immigrants and refugees because here's an example of one of those probably "illegals" that Trump has vowed to deport. What I really don't get is that one of the Republican strategies in a lot of states is to eliminate income tax and replace it to some extent with expanded sales taxes, gasoline taxes, services taxes etc. Aside from that just seeming super unfair to the poor in general, then they also want to do the impossible task of deporting all undocumented immigrants, who make a sizeable chunk of that tax base. Obviously, I digress. Later on those Venezuelan dudes provided some fantastic trail magic. When I went back to the truck for seconds they had a bunch of arepas from an order never picked up, and just gave them to me. Then gave me his card and said if I need a ride or place to stay or anything once I'm down in springer, his friends in Atlanta would hook it up. So frickin nice. Meanwhile we were having a grand ole time with tealeaf and buckshot just chewing the fat and telling trail stories. They had a doozy from a couple nights ago. Two hunters had set up their hammocks INSIDE the shelter, overturned the picnic table to serve as some sort of fire backdrop, then took the heated stones from the fire ring and put them all underneath the shelter. They also made it clear they were super mean and stupid. Man I'm glad we've had nothing but super nice run ins with hikers and hunters alike. Ee got some more trail magic from some folks having a birthday party who gave us their leftover cake and then we closed the brewery down at 8pm and luckily got an Uber. The road walk to the brewery in broad daylight was super scary on its own.  The owners were leaving and let us stay by the fire and let us lock up on our own. I owe a lot of karma after tonight. We all went back to our hotel room for a little mini sobo party with beer and ice cream. We should've got a flying mouse growler but had to settle for yuengling instead. It was a really great night. What's gonna be awkward tomorrow though is that by playing it safe and taking the uber, we left about 1.2 miles of trail undone between the brewery and the hotel, and the trail is basically right through the hotel. So we'll see how purist us and them end up. I think we're anal enough that we won't skip that section, but maybe just slack it tomorrow so we can just get right on trail Monday and not back track. Buckshot was sounding like he might even be purer and need to full pack that mile  well see how it shakes out. The other lazy, dorky, purist issue is do we just walk out and back for a round trip of 2.4? Or cab it and only go the right way