Date: 2016-06-18
From: Damascus / Woodchuck Hostel

To: Wapiti Shelter
Miles today: 8.6
Weather: overcast clouds

This morning I really enjoyed talking to a father (Secretary) and daughter (no trail name yet) at Woodchuck Hostel in Damascus. The daughter wants to become a vet, so I talked up UC Davis to her. :-) She identified the beautiful green moth I saw - a Luna moth. A woman helping at the hostel provided the name for the orange salamanders I've been seeing - red eft. I'm excited to use these new names in a poem.Woodchuck himself shuttled me to the trailhead near Trent's Grocery, where Tanya met me last year at the end of my hike. (did you know "woodchuck" and "groundhog" are two names for the same thing?) He was really happy and nostalgic as we drove there because he hadn't been in that neck of the woods (literally) since hiking there four years ago, when he actually spent the night at Trent's! He was remembering his trip and I was remembering mine. We passed the Big Walker Hotel where I met up with my friend Sara and the Breyer dealership I visited in Bland, and of course, Trent's where I had my happy reunion with Tanya.Woodchuck definitely undercharged me for the trip. He's solid good people. Stay with him when you go to Damascus! He told me stories of what it's like to run a hostel. Over Trail Days he had 98 hikers one night on the property! Rented porta potties and everything. At the trailhead when he dropped me off, I met two hikers who had stayed with him as well - Juju and Walkmoore.And then, finally....picking up where I left off last year!Today I did an Eminem film while a Daniel Day Lewis hurt.(8 Mile, My Left Foot)At one point I unexpectedly came upon a pond that wasn't listed in the AWOL guide and saw a gorgeous deer. I stood watching her for a long time before I saw her little spotted fawn!When I reached the shelter, a guy was there building an impressively-sized fire. We chatted for a long time as I helped gather wood. His name was Aquaman and he had a bunch of friends joining him from Trent's Grocery. Indeed, we had a full house there by sundown: Aquaman, Joe Dirt, Brokeback, Red Bull, Moonshine, Sandman, and two not part of that group, Yolo and Michael.It was a *lot* of smoking and drinking guys for one shelter. We heard them late into the night. But a funny thing happened...A few days ago, I found a copy of Cannery Row at a hiker box. It was right after I'd had the Steinbeck burger in Asheville, so clearly a sign. :-) (also, talk about a change in literary level from last year's 7 Steps to Midnight!) I've been reading a few pages every night, marveling at how beautiful the language is and wondering why this book is taught in high school. I couldn't have appreciated this in high school. It's a book you should read when you've had more experience. Anyway, as I was reading in my tent, a funny thing happened. The descriptions of Mack, Hazel, and the boys of the Palace Flophouse started sounding a lot like the guys out in the shelter getting drunk and stoned together. Even how they'd "done up" the shelter with a bit of tarp sounded like the home improvements the guys made in the book.It was like a scene from 1930s Monterey enacted in 2016 Virginia.After I finally fell asleep, I awoke to a sound that, through my earplugs, sounded like faint sleigh bells. Maybe someone was walking by with bear bells? I took out the earplugs to listen.It was a constant sleigh bell noise punctuated by one second beats that were like crisp whistles. What the hell?Whoop-duh-duh!                  snap!Whoop-duh-duh!                  snap!Whoop-duh-duh!                  snap!All high pitched and constant. I have no idea what it was. Some kind of insect? And then the owl started in. And one of the drunk guys, stumbling around in the woods, unable to find his tent.It was a restless night of owls, mystery whirring, crunching noises from the guy near me adjusting his position on his pad, and even my own stomach growling, which for a second I thought was coming from outside the tent!Side note: Weighed my pack for the first time at Woodchucks. 3 liters water (at two pounds a liter) plus a ton of food - 31 pounds. Means my base weight is low 20s. Not bad.Side note: my iPhone tagged some of my photos "District 1" and "District 6." Am I in The Hunger Games? That would actually explain a lot.Side note: Can we stop calling Wapiti the "murder shelter" out of respect?