Date: 2023-05-12
From: Abingdon Gap Shelter

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 10.2
Weather: clear sky

As far as I know, there was no bear activity at the shelter last night. However, I did wake up around 1:00am and while I was awake I did hear some very loud noises coming from around and behind the shelter. It was enough that I did consider getting up to investigate, but decided against it. There was only one other person in the shelter with me (the other people were tenting about 75 yards away) so I just decided that if it was a bear, it could do what it wanted as long as it did it away from me. So, I went back to sleep.I then proceeded to have a dream about a bear being in the camp. I got out of the shelter and the bear got spooked and started to run away. Only, this bear didn't actually look like a bear. The best way I can describe it is some kind of bear like thing that had gray skin that was almost like either a rhinoceros skin or a gray metal plated skin. Anyway, for whatever reason the bear couldn't run away because there was something blocking its escape route so it turned around towards me. At this point I tried to wake up the other guy in the shelter up, but no matter what I did, he just wouldn't wake up. I shook him and pulled his whole body out of the shelter, but he just kept sleeping. And I remember just saying bear, bear, bear, bear, over and over again louder and louder. At this point I woke up and I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I yelled bear out loud at least once as I was waking up. No one heard me though, so I can't confirm it.One other thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that there was a section hiker tenting nearby. He informed all of us that if we did see a bear that we should yell bear out loud because he was carrying a gun and would shoot it into the air to try and scare it away. Another reason why I'm glad there was no bear.During my hike today I hit another milestone. I have permanently left the state of Tennessee and I'm now in the state of Virginia. I may have already said this in another entry, but the longest section of the AT is in Virginia. It begins (if you're heading north like me) at mile 467.0 and ends at mile 1023.7. So, about 550 miles (there is a small section that crossed into West Virginia for a few miles). The bad news is that's a long ways. The good news is that once Virginia is complete, I'll be almost half way done.From the border, it was only another couple of miles to Damascus and it was almost all downhill. I ended up getting into town around 10:30. Since I went past it on the waybto the hostel I was staying at, I stopped at the Damascus Diner for lunch. I ended up having lunch with some ofnthe people I had met at the shelter the previous night. I got a BBQ bacon cheeseburger with fries and some green beans. It definitely hit the spot.After getting checked in at Lady Di's B&B, I just relaxed for a while. The plan was to meet the same group from lunch at Wicked Chicken for dinner. Before that though, I did go into town to the Main Street Coffee & Cream and got two scoops of Cow Tippin ice cream in a waffle cone. It was basically vanilla ice cream with caramel swirl and some kind of chunks in it.At the Wicked Chicken, the group I was supposed to meet up with were running late so I ended up sitting with another group that was also staying at Lady Di's. I was a little disappointed with what I ordered. I got the boneless honey BBQ wings with a bowl of chicken enchilada soup. The wings had almost no sauce on them. I think that place was biased against boneless wings, because someone else had ordered regular wings with honey BBQ and they looked amazing. The soup was really good though and for a reason I never did figure out, I got a cup and a bowl of soup instead of just the bowl I had originally ordered.I'm going to be staying in Damascus for three nights. I decided the extra zero would be good for me. I'll get to eat some good food for a few days (and as much of it as I can get) and give my body an extra day to recover. Tomorrow I'm going to resupply and get some new shoes. After that I'll just try and rest and relax for the rest of my stay here.