Date: 2007-11-20
From: John's Creek Valley (VA 156)

To: VA Rt 42 (northbound)
Miles today: 7.4

B-1 (¢Bed¢) ended about 7:00 am and B-2 (¢breakfast¢) began at 9:00 am this morning.I shared the Huffman House breakfast table with Brent and his wife, Barbara, who were from Berlin, Germany. Brent was an AFES foreign exchange student (Class of ¢63) at the high school that Carol and Ron attended, and the three have remained in touch all these years. Carol and Ron were an ¢item¢ during their senior year, and there is a picture of them at their senior prom in the hallway downstairs. After graduation, however, they went their separate ways -- each married, had families, divorced, and then reconnected at their 25th high school reunion. Nine months later they were married. That was over 20 years ago. They are both very neat people. After breakfast, Ron drove me over to John¢s Creek Valley while Brent and Barbara came along for the ride. It was a little after 11:00 am when I began the three-mile climb to the top of the ridge, nearly 2,000 feet above the valley floor. Heading north now, I hiked under gray skies. Part of the way up I came upon a couple of hunters from the Daleville area, who were quitting because ¢the hunting weren¢t no good today.¢ I was painfully aware that my non-accent clearly identified me as one of those ¢northerners¢ (i.e. one of the bad guys in the ¢recent unpleasantness¢ as I have heard the Civil War referred to in these parts) in the eyes of these two burly woodsmen, each of whom was carrying a very high-powered weapon. We chatted awkwardly for a moment before I put the turd on the table and told them that I lived in New York City which ¢must make me one of those damn Yankees, I guess?¢ One of the two camo-garbed hunters spit a chaw of his tobacco, wiped his chin with his sleeve before responding in his even southern drawl, ¢No you ain¢t. Y¢all is just a ¢yankee¢. A ¢damn yankee¢ is one of them from up north who moves down here to God¢s country to live.¢ I assured them I was just passing through and had no intention of buying property and, as a matter of fact, had better get a move on before I got a chill. As I headed on up the Trail, I couldn¢t help but wonder how the blaze orange vest I was wearing looked through the scope on their guns? Around 1:30 pm I arrived at the top of John¢s Creek Mountain and decided I would check out the vista from Kelly¢s Knob, even though the day was gray and I doubted there would be much to see. In the brief moments it took to walk the 120 yards from the trail to the knob, however, everything changed. The clouds disappeared, the sun drenched the mountains, and the valley spread out before me. The rocks that form Kelly¢s Knob were soon warm, and I lingered there to enjoy the scene for over an hour while taking in the view and enjoying my lunch. I headed down the eastern side of the mountain, stopping at the Laurel Creek Shelter, where I found a beautiful hawk feather that I stuffed in my headband, Indian-style, for the rest of the hike. I took the descent slowly and enjoyed the woods that were interspersed with laurel thickets and rhododendrons that still bore their shiny green leaves. The last mile or so was across cow pastures of hilly terrain which, in the fading light, I found to be particularly pleasant.I reached the Huffman House by 4:45 pm, just before dusk, and in time for a hot shower and a nap, some phone calls, and then a trip to town to join Ron and Carol, Brent and Barbara for dinner at a vegetarian seafood restaurant across the street from the Virginia Tech campus. All in all, it was a very pleasant, relaxing day, and the dinner¢s social interaction made it much more ¢trail-like¢ than if I had spent the night in the woods alone.Wearing my day pack, which contained only some inclement weather gear, basic survival stuff, three liters of water and my lunch provisions was a wonderful contrast to carrying my larger pack with all the winter clothes and several days of food that I would otherwise have been schlepping on the leaf-covered Trail. All things considered, I think the decision to slack pack rather than Thru Hike these last few days is a really good one. Being snuggled into a warm bed under an electric light and about to roll over and go to sleep only makes the decision feel all the more correct right now. Nite nite.