Date: 2019-05-27
From: Marion, VA

To: Stealth campsite
Miles today: 10.9
Weather: scattered clouds

May 27 (Day 65): Today is Memorial Day. We got up early and packed up and checked out of the hotel in Marion. Ambassador was staying another day waiting for a package from Amazon.We walked to McDonalds and had breakfast. Then we walked towards town to see if we could catch a ride back to the Mt Rogers Rec HQ. The Memorial Day parade was getting ready to start. As we walked past folks waiting for the parade, many of them stopped us to ask questions about our hike. One particular couple, Jim and his wife Fairfax (I love that name!) stopped us and we talked for at least 15 or 20 minutes. They were a lovely couple that looked to be in their late 60s, early 70s. Jim was a retired doctor and graduated from UVA. He and David talked about the NCAA championship and UVA taking it all (Of which David still can't believe that he didn't know who won for 2 weeks after the tournament!). Fairfax played tennis and they both took daily walks. And Fairfax had the prettiest light brown hair that was completely natural. She said none of the women in her family had ever colored their hair. When her mom passed away she only had a few strands of gray hair at her temples. Fairfax shocked us when she told us she was 84 and Jim was 87! They were just the cutest couple.The parade started and it was great! High school marching bands, old cars and tractors, and floats. One lady in the parade yelled out and asked if we were thru-hiking. We told her yes and she said "We had this parade just for you!" We laughed and yelled our thanks. I was especially moved by a float by the ROTC group. They had one of the members kneeling on a flatbed truck in front of a rifle with a helmet on top and a pair of combat boots beneath (the famous "Kneeling Soldier" statue). The parade only lasted an hour but we loved it! Small town parade. Doesn't get any better than that!We walked down to the street heading out of town, to hitch a ride, but few cars came our way and none picked us up. One guy parked nearby came over to talk to us. He had thru-hiked years earlier and his trail name was ZZ Pop. He had the ZZ Top beard and everything, so we knew where he got his name! We talked for a few minutes and then I noticed a man had pulled into the lot behind him and opened the back of his car. He asked us if we needed a ride up to the Rec HQ. He was going to work there. His name was Jay and he was a wildlife biologist.Jay dropped us off by the trailhead. It was close to noon by now. David was stalling getting back on the trail. So he walked over to the HQ and got a Coke and we shared it. I threw the can away, poked him with my pole and said "Those miles aren't hiking themselves. Get going."It was a good hike that day. A couple of uphills but nothing too bad then lots of downs and levels. We saw an 1890 farmstead. The house was closed but we were able to peek in the barns and see the old farming tools and a horse-drawn buggy. There were some chairs and a swing on the front porch. I could just imagine sitting out there on a summer evening, after working hardon the farm all day, and talking about our day. I got a kick out of the lantern hanging from the porch ceiling. The whole farm was in amazing shape for the age.We hiked a short ways from there and came upon the Lindamood Schoolhouse from 1894. The desks and chalkboards were there. Each desk held 2 students. On the walls were pictures of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and an American flag. On the chalkboard was written the following:Welcome to the 1894 one room school, built in 1894. One teacher taught grades 1st-7th. School started in Oct and ended in March. Usually there were 18-25 students. Teachers were paid $30.00 a month. This school closed in 1937.Have a great day! God bless.In the back of the school was trail magic like we had never seen! Four large wooden crates held everything a hiker could hope for. One had supplies like first aid, toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, feminine stuff, etc. Another crate held 2 containers. One container had fresh fruit like apples, bananas, and oranges. The other had all kinds of snacks (cookies, crackers, rice crispy treats, etc.). The last 2 crates had coolers with all kinds of drinks on ice! There were a bunch of hikers there hanging out and they said the ladies from the nearby church had come by earlier and refilled all the food. It was awesome!!A lot of the hikers decided to stay and camp out there. It was only 4:30 so we decided to put in a few more miles before calling it a day. We were also stoked up on food so we had energy galore!We left the school house and hiked through a pretty pasture and into the woods. As it got closer to 6 o'clock and there were no stealth campsites to be found, we started getting concerned. We came up to and crossed railroad tracks and considered finding a flat spot by the tracks (Thank goodness we didn't!), but pushed on, across a boardwalk and up an incline. The grasses were tall on either side of the trail but the area was fairly flat so I suggested camping there but there was a farmhouse that we were concerned might see us and we didn't know if this was their property. David went up the hill a little farther and found a flat spot, out of sight. We camped there and watched a beautiful sunset. Now if only we could have done something about the noise from the railroad tracks on one side of us and I-81 on the other. Oh well. The view was still really pretty.Hiked 10.9 miles today, even with our late start.