Date: 2019-03-20
From: Route 601 Rocky Gap

To: Route 621
Miles today: 16.9

I didn't sleep as we last night, waking up at 4 to go pee and not really sleeping after I got out of bed at 5:45 am and started getting ready. Today's a long day and everything had to go in the car because we're checking out of here and into a new place tonight. We had breakfast again in the lobby before checking out and heading to the trail. I dropped River at 621 where we ended yesterday and she began hiking south towards route 601. I headed to route 601 where I would start hiking north towards her. When she got to 601 she'd pick up the car and come get me at route 621. That was the plan, except it didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped. It's very rural here and River's car doesn't have navigation so there are 2 other options being a map or cell phone navigation. And neither one did we have. River left her map book of VA back in Michigan. No help there. It's very rural here and cell service is rare. Route 601 is a state road but it's a gravel mountain road not maintained in winter. Sounds like fun right? So I had directions but that didn't work well because I had to drive around the mountains, sort of north and then southwest in order to go southeast. 2 hours later I found it! At 10am and fully irritated but somewhat relieved I began hiking my butt off! I saw no one all day except River who I met up with between 1-2pm. We gave each other a trail report of what to expect based the miles behind each of us and hiked on. I stopped only for 10 minutes at a road crossing before a big climb for a bite to eat. It was just before I saw River. I wanted to be out of the woods before dusk and I also didn't want to keep River waiting. I'd enjoyed my part of the trail so far, some nice pastures and rhododendron tunnels but it was a lot of climbing. I'd been looking forward to the ridge walk all day but River's description wasn't impressive. And she was less descriptive than what I actually encountered on the ridge. It was crappy with a lot of sloped walking on the side of the ridge not on top and it included walking on sloped rock slabs. The way this twists your feet and ankles is hard on the body. The views were nice but I'd rather have better trail and what I'd looked forward to all day I couldn't wait to end. I hiked as fast as I could over that ridge and down the other side. I could feel new blisters forming on my feet in the last few miles but I couldn't stop. I made it to the parking lot around 6pm and River was there to pick me up with a cold body armor drink for me. She was outside her car talking with a section hiker she'd met on her hike. Highlander offered us each a PBR and I was a bit dehydrated so I took mine and saved it for later. River drank hers while we talked. We said goodbye to Highlander and his hiking buddy bamboo and were on our way to the MacArthur Inn located in Narrows VA. It was late and we stopped at Hardee's for dinner, gassed up the car and grabbed a hot coffee from McDonald's before arriving at McArthur's. River was already in the lobby when I opened the door with my backpack and full hands and smelled the cigarette smoke. I could almost see the blue haze from it. River was talking with Alan who might be the proprietor and he was not in possession of the reservation which was made for 4 nights. Quickly thinking River advised we'd stay the one night and maybe more but we weren't sure of our plans yet. She requested a non smoking room And Allen informed her that the entire motel is non-smoking and if anyone is caught smoking they will be asked to leave. River and I just looked at each other in quandary. Alan walked us to our room on the second floor and when he open the door we were surprised by a very large room with fairly new furniture and it looks clean and inviting. we settled in and as usual one of the first orders of business is to check for bed bugs. So river lifted up her mattress and everything was spotless between the mattress and the box spring so we unpacked showered and by 10 another late night we were both in bed. It was probably 11 by the time the lights and TV were off and I was asleep.