Date: 2008-04-09
From: Unnamed Campsite VA

To: Symms Gap Meadow VA 
Miles today: 14.7

Day 52 ¢ Wednesday April 9 ¢ Symms Gap Meadow VA ¢ Miles Today: 14.7 Total Miles: 635.7We woke up to our normal gray and misty morning with moisture falling off the trees on the tent. The tent fly was quite wet again this morning. We got up a bit earlier this morning - 6:00 a.m.   Why?   Because it's town day, which means we get to go into town and EAT! We were on the trail by 7:00 motivated by the saliva glands! The steep decline into Pearisburg that everybody talked about was not as bad as we thought. Luckily the water runoff on the trails that we've been experiencing the last few days, was non-existent on the 3-mile descent to town. We had good hard soil allowing our shoes to grip well. Tim, the 3-time thru-hiker, who we were with the last couple days, described the descent into Pearisburg when it's wet as ¢slippery as snot". Luckily, we could say it had no resemblance to snot. We arrived in Pearisburg after about 1-1/2 hours of hiking. After looking at the town map we decided it would be more logical to go to the Rendezvous Motel first to pick up fuel and our partial food drop and then hit the grocery store.   Unfortunately when we arrived there was no motel attendant around. We tried to call the numbers listed in the motel lobby window, but to no avail. After waiting about 20 minutes or so, the motel lady came back from running some errands. She had our food drop for us and only charged us a buck for our fuel vs. about $4.50 that other stops have charged us! As we waited for the motel lady, we met another couple thru-hiking. They just started their 2nd week on the trail. They're flip-floppers from Colorado, about 50 years old each and sort of retired. He just works for a period of time in the financial industry and then takes a year or two off to do whatever they might want to do ¢ learn to play golf or travel or do a thru-hike. Then he goes back to work for a while until the next interest sparks and takes him out of Corporate America again. He¢s been doing this work some / play some model for quite some time. He said however that each time he goes back to work, it¢s for a shorter time period.   One could understand why! They have 4 children; all of who are through college except one who is a junior. They have been trying to educate their children that there are more options for employment other than the typical model of 40-hour weeks for 40 years. His name is Snickers. Her name is The Energizer Turtle ¢ Turtle for short. Both sound like very self-explanatory trail names!Once we introduced ourselves to Snickers and Turtle via our trail names, you could see a grin immediately form on Snickers face.   ¢Ah¢, he said, ¢I¢m supposed to ask you if you have any Girl Scout cookies!¢ So very funny! They actually had 2 messages from Josh and Amanda for us. One that we hiked like Girl Scouts and need to hike faster. And secondly, that we had Girl Scout cookies that we needed to share with Snickers and Turtle. We really got the giggles out of the messages from our new thru-hiker friends Josh and Amanda.   Many miles ago, in North Carolina, perhaps in the Smokies, we were hiking a bit ahead of them that day and as we passed some south-bounders we asked them to relay a message to them for us. The message was that they were ¢Girl Scouts and needed to pick up the pace¢. So here it is about 450 miles later and the joke is still continuing. They're actually just a day ahead of us now as they took 2 days in Pearisburg. Got to love the trail newsletter. Such an effective means of communication!   Apparently, Josh and Amanda camped about 3 miles south of Pearisburg, perhaps where we camped last night, a couple days ago when a huge rain came through during the night and unfortunately their tent leaked. They had an inch of rain in the tent and Amanda's down bag was toast. It was a long night of sharing one sleeping bag and bailing out the tent. They spent 2 nights in Pearisburg drying the wet sleeping bag and trying to figure out the tent issue. Bummer news. We still love our MSR Hubba Hubba tent. We are definitely dry in it, dual vestibules are great, it packs a bit bulkier but if it keeps us dry, it is a good thing. Snickers also told us that Josh and Amanda will soon be getting off the trail for 5 days to visit with her family at some cabin. So it sounds like we'll be ahead of them in the not so distant future. Ah, an opportunity to send more trash talking messages to them via south-bounders.   Luckily we picked up our partial food drop box first rather than heading to the grocery store, as we were surprised to see lunch items in the food drop. No problem though, that just means we do not need to buy lunch items at the store.   However, it makes us wonder if we need to always try to pick up the food drop box first at future town stops, as we would not be able to carry that much extra food. Or if we did not receive something in the food drop that we thought we should and we had already hit the grocery store, we¢d lose time on going back to the store. But, on to Wade's Grocery, we went. Let me just tell you that we spent enough time in Wade's Grocery to be classified as an employee. We roamed up and down every aisle trying to figure out what would best satisfy our saliva glands. Brakeman settled on a lemon filled cream loaf cake weighing a whole pound! He proudly ate nearly all of, with Grasshopper getting just a small piece. He was so proud of himself! Grasshopper had a donut and a yogurt while Brakeman worked on his cake. We split a quart of chocolate milk and we each topped off our morning break at the grocery loading dock with a banana. We saved our two apples for the trail.   A very delightful and filling trip to the grocery store, though next time we probably need to get something healthier in addition to all of our sugar - more of the yogurts and maybe a brick of cheese. But, it sure was good and boy did it help us get up the incline out of Pearisburg. We found the incline out of Pearisburg a bit more difficult than the descent into town. The trail conditions today were superb. It was a smooth trail with minimal rocks. Grasshopper found the trail extremely sweet after days of rocks. For Brakeman though the trail miles came a bit hard because of his very full pack. Today was our warmest day yet. It was in the upper 70s and we were down to shorts and T-shirt and were quite sweaty. When we hit the little pond just before our campsite, we went downstream where the water was running cleaner and freshened up quite a bit before heading on to camp.   Apparently, this pond is in West Virginia or on the West Virginia border!   Wow, close to another state!We're camped in the woods just off the Symms Gap Meadow at mile marker 635.7 along with Snickers and Turtle. The meadow is full of droppings of questionable origin. Our guess is, perhaps, deer but the pellets are basically smaller than a jellybean and we aren¢t quite sure if that's really what a deer dropping looks like at this time of year ¢ i.e., based on their diet at this time of the year. But based on the amount of droppings, we may have some visitors tonight. We spent quite a bit of time this evening visiting with Snickers and Turtle. It was interesting to listen to their food drop strategy. Sounds like Turtle did a lot of dehydrating of food before the trip. One of their sons is sending them food boxes. When we asked if they also had put together a spreadsheet to coordinate how many breakfast, lunches and dinners were needed for each box, they replied, ¢No. Each food box has 6 days of food.¢   That left a puzzle on our face. We asked what if the next section is 4 days or 8 days, to which they responded, ¢we eat more or we eat less.¢ That still left a puzzle on our face! Due to our lengthy visit, it's now 8:50 and it appears to still be pushing upper 60s in the tent. We're going to bed tonight with the sound of a ton of frogs. I am wondering if Brakeman is going to wish that he did not send his earplugs home by mistake. Might be a long night for him. We're feeling quite clean, refreshed and ready for another day tomorrow, hopefully skipping the gray stage. The sky is a little bit gray tonight. They are saying a chance of evening thunderstorms but I think the storm is going to miss us.   Looking forward to perhaps a 17-miler tomorrow to another campsite. Goodnight from Virginia, very close to West Virginia border.