Date: 2004-05-14
From: Va. 611

To: Va. 606
Miles today: 9.6

So today is Friday May 14th 2004. Our fifth wedding anniversary, and we plan on celebrating tonight. Yes, we have been together almost 20 years. We got engaged on Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain NP in 1990. We got up this morning and got out of there by 7:40 a.m. We shuttle the cars exactly where we were at yesterday afternoon. We get on the trail at 8:25 from Virginia 611 And hike to Virginia 608. We will have a second hike after that, weather permitting. It's cool but very humid today, there's a lot of fog in the valleys.Little Tree and Walking Stomach, two female thru-hikers stayed at our hotel last night. They were outside their room trying to cook their meals on their Trail stove. We said we'd give him a ride this morning to the trail, but they were already gone by the time we get going. So now we're going down the trail, and we get to the Jenny Knob shelter turnoff at about 9:50. And it's downhill to the shelter, but Cindy needs to use the privy, and we get to read the shelter Journal. We read about the people we've seen on the trail weeks ago, and left there at 10:20 a.m. We got back to our car on Virginia 608 at 10:55 am. We met at gal Judy on the trail, who is section hiking, but planning on staying at the big Walker hotel tonight. We said you can knock on room 10, we will be there tonight also. Now we're going to pick up our other car and reshuttle the cars, and do another hike. We sat at Virginia 606 and had our lunch, before taking the other car up to Virginia 608. Our lunch was peanut butter and honey sandwiches. No, we had our lunch actually at Virginia 608. We finally got on the trail at 11:50 a.m. We read a trail description before starting the hike, but as soon as we're on the trail, it didn't seem like the information was correct. It was a nice slow graded up up up, until you got on the ridge. Down to a gap, back up to the ridge. But after that, the trail seem to go everywhere, left right up down around, we didn't know where we were going to end up. You come out to a pasture with honeysuckle and tall grass(these are not trail names), and they wind you around through the pasture. But eventually you come out to this Kimberling suspension bridge. We felt there had been a relocation in this area recently, because the trail wasn't like the book description. So we got back to the car at 2:20 p.m. So now we go back to get our other car, and go back to the Walker motel and enjoy our anniversary. This is still Friday our anniversary day. We go back to get our other car, The Impala. We're on Highway 42 coming into this little town of Bland. And Terry's not paying any attention that the speed limit has gone down. Police car passes us going the other way, and when we look back, he's turning around and he has his lights on, his flashing lights. We're looking back at him, and he still hasn't got his car turned around yet. As we're very close to our turn off road, VA 608 to get to our car. Cindy says just hurry up and make the turn on 608, he may not know you turned there. So we sped up and turned off on 608 and hurried to our car, where Cindy jumped out and got in her car, while I sped off down the road. She would call me on the walkie-talkie if the cop came down Va608, which he didn't. We were having fun with it, and Cindy took the lead then, and led us back, in a back way to Bland, Virginia . Terry split off and took another back way into town, so he wouldn't run into any policeman. Cindy went to the grocery store, bought some wine and other things, Like beer for our celebration. Got back to the Big Walker Motel at 4 p.m and Terry was cleaned up and sitting out on the deck. We sat in some rockers and talk to some hikers, One guy Batch who is 82 years old, He's thru-hiking it the second time. The first time in 1992. Another hiker named Hobbes who was mid 50s. Terry gave them a ride down to the Dairy Queen and then drove out to the trailhead looking for Judy. Just as he got to the trailhead, Judy was getting a ride from someone else. Terry came back and thought Judy would be there, but they must have stopped somewhere for supplies, but she showed up just a few minutes later. So then we gave Judy a ride down to Dairy Queen, with the intention of picking the guys up from Dairy Queen, but they were halfway back all ready. Batch turned around and walked back to DQ to get that free ride back. So then we went into our room and enjoyed the early evening, and finally decided we wanted to take a road trip into Wytheville again. So we got down on the interstate, which was in terrible condition again, going 10 miles per hour up Walker Mountain, only one lane was open through the tunnel. We saw the burnt area of the tunnel, apparently there was that fire the other night that screwed up traffic for a long time. It took 30 minutes to get up to the tunnel and then we just flew on in from there to Wytheville. We ate at the 1872 Log Cabin. They seat you in just a random room, at the Log Cabin home, for your dinner, very nice . Afterwards we walked around their Gardens and looked in the gift shop window . We got back to the motel at 9, stayed up till 10 to watch the local news. We went to bed and then at 1:30 in the morning, someone's knocking on our door . Cindy looked out the window, he saw her and decided it was the wrong room, we never talked to him.