Date: 2010-05-30
To: Daleville, Va
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Hello All,It has been quite a while since I have been able to get to a computer so am taking this time to get out an email. We arrived in Daleville VA which is a few miles north of Roanoke yesterday after a 21 mile hike up, down and along the ridges of the VA mountains. We had planned on a shorter hike but couldn't resist a ayce (all you can eat) country style restaurant located off trail near Catawba VA. After a very good meal in a neat old country style farm house a terrific rain storm with hail hit so we decided to stay in a hiker room behind a country store and do the long hike the next day. The countryside in VA is beautiful, many pretty farms and meadows which we get to hike through occasionally, however, more and more we are walking the ridges for miles with small ups and downs. The prettiest sights on the entire so far have been the Mt. Roger and Grayson High Lands with large open meadows, fir trees, boulder outcroppings with cattle and wild ponies. We are pretty much into a regular routine waking with the birds chirping just at day break now around 6:00 am. We stuff our sleeping bags into water proof bags, eat our breakfast, pack our packs and hit the trail around 7:00 am. We try to take a 5 minute break once an hour or 1 1/2 hours when we take off our packs, drink some water and take a few bites of an energy bar then start walking again until we have a 30 minute lunch break between 12 and 1, preferably at a shelter with a picnic table if one is available. We fill up our 1 liter Nalgene bottles every few hours when there is a spring or stream along the way. Sometimes the water is piped out of the ground and we do not feel the need to treat the water, any streams or open water outlets we treat. I use Aqua Mira drops, Lance uses a new technology a Sani-pen which is battery operated and uses ultra violet. Other people use filters but I found them to be too time consuming so sent it home. I also sent my cold weather gear home when we got to Pearisburg so my pack is considerably lighter. Food has become our main focus when we are not concentrating on the trail. The following is my eating routine during a typical day: Breakfast: 2 packets of Instant Breakfast in a cup of water and two Pop Tarts . To save time we stopped cooking at breakfast when we use to have oat meal. Lunch: 1/2 bagel with spam, tuna salad or cheese and 1/2 bagel with peanut butter, 3 gumdrops. Dinner:Either Ramen noodles, Idahoan Instant Potatoes, Knorr Noodles or rice or chicken noodle soup topped off with a cup of hot chocolate and a handful of M&Ms. We try to keep our pack weight down by bringing foods that are light but high in calories and protein. Unfortunately with the energy output the food does not make up enough and we are losing weight. That's why whenever we get near a store or restaurant we can eat a pretty incredible amount of food. Not much wild life to report on. We see an occasional deer which are so tame they do not even stop browsing while we photograph them. A few pretty good size black snakes on the trail. One of our hiking companions, Chicken Feathers 65 year old from GA, did see a bear the other day but it was running so fast he couldn't even get his camera out in time. Our next stop will be Waynesboro VA and we will be entering SNP (Shenandoah National Park) about a 100 mile stretch before we get out to the north end of VA. This Monday will begin our9th week on the trail, hard to believe, time is actually going by quickly. Hope all of you are doing fine. I copied pictures from my camera to a CD and am sending them to Kim & David so that she can update the TJ. Thanks Kim and David for all you have been doing with the Journal. Regards, Shagman aka Keith~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Note from Keith's scribe...my utmost of appologies for being so negligent. I will try to be better in the future.