Date: 2011-06-09
From: 5.1 miles after Peters Mountain Shelter

To: Best Western, Lickdale
Miles today: 19.1

(In which I hitch in to Lickdale and run in to Buffalo)It's another hot and humid day, easily into the 90s. I leave at 7:30, earlier than I have been recently, to try to beat the heat, but by 8am I'm covered with sweat. The weather forecast on Shakey's phone calls for evening thunderstorms, so I plan to either stay at the next shelter (13 miles) or hitch in to Lickdale (19 miles). 19 miles would be a long day, but in order to meet my friends at the 501 shelter on Saturday I need to do a long day either today or tomorrow. Despite the heat I hike at a brisk pace to reach the first shelter early and keep my options open.My iPod battery has drained, seemingly from an instant messaging application app I had recently installed, so I walk alone and without musical accompaniment for the first time in a while. The gnats are out in full force, and despite liberal use of 100% deet, they buzz endlessly around my ears, laughing a high pitched chuckle at my weak chemical attempts to discourage them.Shortly before the shelter I see a deer and, just beside it, the smallest baby deer I have ever seen. It stands perhaps one foot tall and I am astonished to see a deer so tiny, having assumed that, like horses, deer were born already two feet tall or larger. The baby stands in a patch of sunlight and its whole body glows translucent, like it's just recently descended to this mortal plane. I slowly, carefully remove my pack to retrieve my camera, but the mother turns and bounds off with the baby right behind, and though I wasn't able to get a picture I am glad to have witnessed the sight.The shelter is in one of the nicest spots I've seen in the past few days and even has a spring-fed sink. There are several beautiful tent spots, but I want a roof over my head if it really does storm. The shelter log warns about bugs at night, and the thought of another sleepless night in a shelter is enough to convince me to hike on to Lickdale. I still have plenty of time though, so I decide to take a nap first, rigging up some bug netting left in the shelter and lying directly on the shelter floor. I find that the heat has made me exhausted, and I sleep for an hour before Shakey catches up. When I wake up I find that, while keeping bugs out, the netting also keeps heat in, and I am sweating even more than before. I try to convince Shakey to come to Lickdale and split a room, but having just started in Harpers Ferry his feet have not yet had a chance to get used to hiking every day, and he decides to stay in the shelter and give them a rest.Though Lickdale is only 2.4 miles off the trail, it turns out to be a difficult hitch. I consider walking, but rain looks imminent and the road looks dangerously curvy. Eventually three teenager boys returning from a swim in the river offer me a lift and we head in to town. The boy driving has picked up hikers before, and I listen in amusement as he explains the notion of thru-hiking to his buddy who was never heard of it. "They just hike every day? I don't know why anybody would want to do that," the buddy says skeptically. "No man, it's cool," the driver explains. "I mean what else are you going to do all summer?"I walk to the different hotels to compare prices and find that the prices I'm quoted have no correlation with the prices listed in the guidebook. I meet a married hiker couple -- the only other hikers I can find in town -- who checked in to the Days Inn. They were offered one rate over the phone and another in person, neither of which match the price I was given or the one in the book, and I wonder if hotel pricing is a game based on the clerk's estimation of the potential customer's willingness to pay and their other available options. At the Best Western I finally have some luck talking the clerk down to the price in the guidebook, and check in to a large, clean room with a fridge and microwave.I walk over to the general store and as I'm looking at ice cream flavors, I'm surprised to see Buffalo walk up and wave hello. His ride can't pick him up until later tonight so he's been hanging out around town all day, spending most of his time under a bridge. Sitting around not hiking has been difficult for Buffalo and I sympathize, remembering the mental challenge of dealing with my initial knee problems. We share a half gallon of ice cream as we chat, but only finish half of it, finding that our hiker appetites have shrunk with our mileage. We hang out in my hotel room, searching the iTunes store on my iPod Touch to come up with a list of music for Buffalo to add to his music player while he's back home. His friend finally arrives, but I'm glad to have gotten to hang out one more time before his break.I do my town chores, searching for food (resupply options are limited, with no grocery store nearby), washing clothes, showering, downloading new podcasts and charging my devices. It's nice to be clean again, however briefly, but without other hikers to keep me company the town has little appeal, and I look forward to getting back on the trail.