Date: 2018-08-30
From: Lickskillet Hostel (VA 608)

To: Pearisburg
Miles today: 31.2
Weather: overcast clouds

Well rested, I decide to tackle another big mile day to Pearisburg. It's 31 miles. If I do it I'll be ahead of schedule and take the pressure off the rest of the trip. With rain forecast and tougher terrain north of Pearisburg now is the time to get the miles.Mongo makes me some eggs with hot peppers to get me going and drops me at the trailhead a half mile down the road. As promised the trail is incredibly easy here with well-graded pine needle tread following ridgelines. But keeping up a fast pace for a second day is wearing and my feet are feeling the impact. I stop for two lunches, eating the sandwiches I packed out yesterday, as much to let my feet rest as to refuel. Water is abundant for the first 13 miles as I cross countless streams and creeks. But it is virtually non-existent for the last 18 miles except for a couple small pools at "reliable" springs. So I somehow manage to get by on the two liters I brought with me. Cool morning air and a cloudy afternoon help.I pass three southbounders on the way. Milo and Windrider (a sailor) are flip-floppers while Solo is a true SOBO who started May 16th (shuttling back to Katahdin once it opened).Thunderstorms crackle around me in seemingly every direction for most of the afternoon, but it only rains on me briefly and lightly. I happen to even be at Doc's Knob shelter when it does so I am completely unscathed. Too bad. I almost wanted a downpour just to cool me off. I find out later it did downpour just a few miles south on my hostelmates for the evening.The monotony and foot-pounding drag on for eleven hours and the trail often becomes rocky, but finally I head down a 1500 foot descent into Pearisburg. Mongo is there to pick me up earlier than I expected. He's got the southbounder Solo and we're both eager to try the Mexican restaurant in town. Solo turns out to be author Kirk Ward Robinson and a three-time thruhiker who lives on the Tennessee farm his grandfather founded. He's gotten inspiration for several of his novels while hiking, including The Appalachian. After dinner we head out of town in Mongo's Toyota into a dark night. While going up route 100 in the middle of nowhere the front tire suddenly blows out. Backing down to a cross road to get off the narrow highway we grab the spare, switch it out, and find it too is flat. And no compressor in the car. Mongo tries some friends for help but no luck. A lonely closed store across the highway has a diesel tank but no air hose. I use Mongo's phone to call my insurer to request roadside service, an excruciatingly complicated process, and find it's not even covered if it's not my vehicle and the woman seems unable to distinguish Pearisburg from Petersburg (they're a couple hundred miles apart). Meanwhile a car has pulled into the store lot and a man gets out to start up the pickup that's been sitting there. Mongo goes over to see if he will help. As Mongo later relates, the man waited until he had loaded his gun before rolling down the window for Mongo. But fortunately he's a stand-up fellow once assured of our legitimate predicament and runs our flat spare down to Walmart to inflate it. Saved by the good fortune of this man stopping just at this time. And by having our incident across from the store rather than the completely empty stretch of highway ahead of us. Another late night, but after double-checking the tire at a gas station we finally reach the hostel for a well-deserved rest.