Date: 2010-06-13
From: Paul C Wolfe shelter

To: home
Miles today: 5.0
Weather: light rain

In the morning I still ached. I noted that I could feel individual lymph nodes. This is not a good sign. I packed up the crapola and headed out. I only needed to make it five miles to the road, and then I'd be meeting JD. I figured if I didn't feel better by then I'd get a ride home with him rather than staying in Waynesboro. No need to be sick in a motel when home is a couple hours drive away.I've done this stretch of trail before. It's an easy one. None the less, it felt hard. My muscles burned. The vertigo I had previously experienced came back full force, then receded to a mild dizziness which stayed with me the whole way. I also fell down, but that was the fault of a slippery rock. It's always the slippery rocks! And I managed to pull the bite tube off my water when I fell, so I soaked a pants leg. Grrr.On reaching Rockfish Gap, I headed toward the visitor center. I knew it to be closed, but I also knew there were shuttlers listed on paper taped to the outside of it. Before I even got to the door, a truck stopped and the owner asked if I wanted a ride. On the way into town we discussed my plans - which involved getting doxycycline and meeting my husband. The driver was so kind. He showed me the standard hiker haunts in Waynesboro, then took me to the Kroger pharmacy which he thought was open on Sundays. He told me to go check and he'd wait for me in case they weren't open. What a nice guy! I told him not to wait - if they weren't open, the Kroger was as good a place as any to wait for JD.The pharmacy was indeed open. And nice. They checked the prescription for me. I needed to know how much it cost out of pocket. The answer? $8.40. Whoa! My copay used to be more than that. And it would only take fifteen minutes to fill. Excellent. There was one problem, however.. the doctor had written it out as "doxyceftin". Which doesn't exist. Probably it was on the tip of her mind because we had just discussed how I'm allergic to Ceftin. The pharmacist had no problems with filling it for doxycycline after checking with me.I only wanted two other things from the store: cherries and a cold drink. Kroger had no problem supplying that. I sat on a bench out front eating cherries and drinking a cold pepsi. Two other people asked me if I needed a ride. Folks, Waynesboro could not be more hiker friendly. The YMCA offers free showering and camping in town. The town has prepared a brochure listing services hikers might want. And people are just more friendly and helpful to hikers than anywhere else I've been. I waited twenty minutes to be safe, then went back to the pharmacy. The pharmacist talked to me about Lyme, assuring himself that my symptoms were right, and reminded me about the sun sensitivity effect of the antibiotics. And he rang up my $8.40. Which was less than I paid for the cherries.Not too long after that, JD arrived. We went to Ming Garden's buffet (nb: totally worth it. Go if you're there.) and then got on the highway. And three hours later I was home.I just took my first dose of antibiotics. I have a prescription for three weeks worth. I basically can't hike while taking the drugs, because I burn to blistering very quickly while on them. And I can't see hiking with gloves and a keffiyah in July. So I have a three week break now.I'll be resting, healing, and taking care of maintenance issues (haircut, doctor visit, etc). And probably going nuts with no hiking. After that I hope to get back on the trail. I will likely skip areas I've already hiked. With all the time off it doesn't make sense to redo Shenandoah and areas in that vicinity.I don't plan on daily updates while I'm home. There won't be a lot going on, and I don't want to write entries of the "today my left elbow hurt" variety.