Date: 2007-04-29
From: Doc's Knob Shelter

To: New River, Sen. Shumate Bridge
Miles today: 8.7

357 Magnum, Ranger, and Ben and Amanda were all up and out by 6:30 this morning. I guess Pearisburg's honing beam was too strong to resist. As for myself, I just lay about the shelter for several more hours catching some more shut-eye and eating breffikst.It was damn near 10 by the time I finally moved my ass, but it was all good. I took it really easy, stopping for a good while at a vista to take in a view of town from above. Several hawks were soaring to and fro, catching the thermals for prolonged periods of time before diving suddenly toward a ledge or a tree, where there was most inevitably some sort of mammalian sustenance. I sat there for quite a while, eager to linger longer and avoid the wretched draw of a soft bed and clean clothes and cheap non-hiker food, but I knew I had but no choice, and after a while, I left.I presently made it Angel's Rest, a massive rock formation on the top of a mountain overlooking Pearisburg. I began walking down. It was quite a descent, and I more or less ran down it; there were A LOT of day hikers climbing up to the top.Near the bottom of the mountain, one sweaty hiker babe asked me how far it was to the top. "Um..." I said. She still had several miles left. She just kinda gave me one of those looks that said, "Yeah okay, and continued climbing.I waited for quite a while at the Sen. Shumate Bridge trying to hitch into Pearisburg. Wingfoot had written that it was quite easy, but every single car was passing me at lightning speed. Finally after about 30 minutes two hiker approach me hiking south along the bridge. Turns out it's Patrick, who I haven't seen since Damascus, and Papa Hawk, a tall skinny gray-haired man who's thru-hiking with his daughter, Eulah. They were returning from a slackpack."What are you trying to hitch from here for?" said Papa Hawk. He pointed to a street off to the side of the main drag. "Walk with us over toward that building with the red roof, and you'll get a ride immediately. None of these cars are locals."He was dead right. No sooner had we gotten to the road, Papa Hawk stuck out his thumb and a pickup pulled over and brought us into town.I hung out with them for a good hour at the motel, and then sauntered over to the one next door, "the Plaza Motel" where I found 357 Magnum, who was icing a shin splint; he looked like he was in some pain, and was planning on taking a few zero days to heal. Also at the motel was Johnny Mud, who I've been following in the registers for the last couple of weeks. We will be splitting a room for the night.I immediately liked Johnny Mud. He's a massive individual- 6'5'- his feet are possibly the most enormous things I've ever seen. I feel very small compared to him. He's a speech therapist in his mid-fifties taking a mid-life crisis break. He's had an interesting life, he's hitch hiked all over the country, and done all sorts of crazy stuff I won't go into detail here. In other words, he's lived, and seems to be enjoying every moment of it, and not letting a simple thing like age slow him down.I'll be taking a zero here to-morrow to write my article for the Suffolk News, and I'll spend the night at the Catholic church hostel, which is a good 2- 3 miles into town.As for Pearisburg itself, it's a rather large, spread-out town that has definitely seen better years. Most of the buildings seem either closed or abandoned, and there really wasn't any good restaurants to speak of. The Mexican place is supposedly okay, but it's given everyone I've talked to the shits real bad, so I'm gonna avoid it. Here's to a healthy body.