Date: 2004-05-24
From: Montebello, Va

To: Reed's Gap
Miles today: 80.0

Pretty cool that my parents set this [website] up for me. I will try to update as much as possible. I left Trail Days in Damascus on Saturday morning with Angrist (James) and No Mas (Tom). After showering at the Atkins truck stop we headed to hike 4 miles up to Dragon's Tooth. We were lucky with the weather and had a great night camping up there. It was my first time that I've camped at the summit and also the first time that i hiked over using the AT. Previously, I had always hiked the blue blaze trail from the Hwy 311 parking lot. The next day we hiked to the McAfee's Knob parking lot where a car was parked. We drove back to the other car at the start and met Dinner Short and Figgit for the first time taking advantage of some trail magic. We headed off for real food and found it at an Applebee's in Roanoke by the airport. Angrist and I stayed in a hotel for the night and he headed back to NoVa in the morning after dropping me back off at the trail. Angrist bought a case of beer and said he was going to drop it off in Tinker Creek off of Hwy 220(?). I hiked the 19 miles to Tinker creek going over McAfee's Knob and Tinker Cliffs. When I arrived at the creek it was dark and I didn't see any beer in the overflowing creek. After checking my cell phone messages, I found that Angrist wasn't able to find the creek. That was fine because I was pretty tired and a little nervous about tenting by myself, a first for this trip. After I set my tent up that night in the dark, I started hearing things in the woods, of course. It sounded like a bear because something was breaking huge logs. I decided to skip dinner and just do with snacks to get into my tent quicker. All of the sudden out of the darkness I hear "TRUNKS!". It was Flyboy coming down the trail scaring the crap out of me. I tried to get him to stay but he was meeting someone. I felt a little better after we talked pretty loudly and scared away whatever was out there. It turned out to be a quiet night and continued on my journey the next day. I hiked the next day with Chigger and Rock Steady off and on. We dodged a T-storm by hanging out for several hours in Fullhardt Knob Shelter. After the storm I continued on to the next shelter. From this time to the present I've been doing 15-20 mile days much easier than I used to. It's been nice. One thing I've been doing is getting up at 6am and hitting the trail around 7am or so. I've also learned to not sleep in shelters. One night I had the worst experience. First a group of 4 night hikers showed up and spent an hour talking and eating a late dinner while i was trying to sleep a few feet away. Then the mosquitos totally attacked. I had to sleep with my mosquito netting on. And I still got so many bites on my hands that it looked like I had poison ivy for the next few days. Last Friday, I met up with Genie and Chris at the James River. They drove in from Columbia, MD and brought beer, burgers, and snacks. We hiked in a mile and camped. They had never been on the AT before and seemed to really have a good time. I'm glad they came out. Walk Softly joined us for a short while and told me about a bed and breakfast in Montebello called the Dutch Haus. I ended up following him there on Sunday night. It was great because I walked in the door after hitching a ride a couple miles and dinner was on the table and waiting for me. Lois informed me that I had to shower first. That was a good idea because I hadn't bathed in 8 days. I have been able to swim in a few creeks to clean off but 90 degree weather does bad things to a dirty body. After an excellent home cooked meal, I turned my attention to my feet. I had received some advice from Okie to use vaseline on my blisters. I applied it to the backside of my ankles and it worked great for a couple of days. Then, I think what happened was the vaseline clogged my pores and didn't allow for my wounds to heal. I decided to take it easy and stay an extra night after slack packing 10 miles over the Priest today. I hiked in my Crocs and it wasn't too bad. Hopefully tomorrow I'm able to use the boots again. They are going to need to be replaced soon. They've made it 800 miles on the trail and are starting to break down. I'm here at the bed and breakfast with Sunshine, Leki-less, Homeboy, and Danny. There are a few others here but I don't remember their trailnames. So, my plans for tomorrow are to wait for Angrist to show up tomorrow late morning and we are going to slack pack The Three Ridges. That will put us about 15-20 miles from entering Shenandoah. Thursday will be my last day of hiking before taking 5 days off to see Jill in Northern VA. I can't wait!!! Then I hop back on the trail with my sister, her friend Kerry, and Frank. Hello to Timber, Tumbleweed, Koi, Goldfish, and Dragonfly. I think you guys may be catching me soon -or- you are going to be several days in front of me when I start back up. OH, great news, I got the Phish tickets for June 17th and 18th in Brooklyn. Hopefully you guys did as well!!!Trunks