Date: 2015-05-30
From: Paul C. Wolfe Shelter

To: Waynesboro, VA
Miles today: 5.1

First of all, today marks two months on the trail!I hung my clothes up in the shelter to dry overnight. They were still soaked in the morning. My shoes had that walked in water but never dried smell. I started packing up at 6:00 and was gone by 6:15 since I didn't want a granola bar for breakfast. Being in the shelter helped speed everything up since I didn't have to pack up a tent. I slept terribly though.The trail up to Rockfish Gap wasn't too bad and I was there right around 8:00. I called the Wife and they were about 40 minutes out. I spread myself out on some picnic tables and dried my tent up on a nearby fence. Always keeping it classy.By 8:45 I saw the car and went to grab my tent off the fence. When my Wife and Mother in Law got out of the car I ran over and made my Mother in Law hug me. Embrace the hiker funk, people.   They handed me some cookies and a Gatorade and we headed off to Cracker Barrel. As soon as we got in the car my MIL rolled the windows down. After six days in the woods I wasn't shy about the fact that my body and everything I own stunk. Especially after two downpours in two days.When we got to Cracker Barrel I headed straight into the bathroom to try to get somewhat clean. Then I ate everything they'd bring me. With a side of bacon. When we left the restaurant my MIL saw the checkerboard outside and proceeded to let me know she was pretty good checkers player. Challenge accepted. We sat outside and I proceeded to make her regret it. Good times.It was still early but we decided to see if the Holiday Inn would let us check in early. They gave us one of our rooms and I ran through the hall and literally leaped into the bathtub. After 30 minutes I finally started smelling normal again. I came out of the bathroom and went straight to a bag of Krispy Kreme crullers.   I'm happy to say the entire bag has officially been finished.It started pouring rain outside so the girls decided it was nap time. They had left Durham ridiculously early to be there so I understood. I laid there and watched Major League on Comedy Central and was pretty okay with the situation.I wanted to go do the tourist thing and take a trip up Skyline Drive in the afternoon. We hopped in the car and headed back to the gap only to see a couple of my hiker friends fresh off the trail. I pulled in, picked them up and we were headed back into town. Have I mentioned my MIL's disdain for the hiker funk? She was in the back seat with them and it was hilarious to watch. It's always nice to help out a couple hikers though.After dropping them off we headed into Shenandoah National Park. After checking out a couple viewpoints we rounded a corner and there was the most elusive thing on the entire Appalachian Trail. After walking 861 miles I see my first bear while driving my Subaru up Skyline Drive. It was just nonchalantly crossing the road. I'm glad we saw it as it made everyone's day.After a couple of hours we came back to town, stopped at the outfitters to grab me a new shirt (my green one is just too big), and went for dinner. I only had a double cheeseburger, chili dog, cheese sticks and a ton of fries. Just a light dinner, you know?We came back, I spent some time in the hot tub, and ran back to the room to plan my resupply. We then ran over to Chick-Fil-A for milkshakes and to Wal-Mart to buy way too much food, as always. Tomorrow afternoon they'll drop me off and I'll walk into Shenandoah National Park. The trail shouldn't be too bad and I'm hoping to be in Front Royal, VA no later than Friday. After that it will be the final push out of Virginia and into Harpers Ferry, WV. I'm ready to see a new state.This is probably the last time I'll have the benefit of having the Wife in town. It stinks. It's so good to see each other and makes everything about a town stop so easy. I'm just getting too far from home now. Having her in town the last three weekends has really made Virginia, and my attitude, so much better.   The weather looks terrible for the week. I can't control it so there's no reason to worry. I've gotten all of my gear/smell issues worked out so I'm ready to hit the trail again. It will be a shorter day tomorrow as I'm going to hang around in town a while. I'll start pushing hard again on Monday. I've been told from the start that the Shenandoahs will be a cake walk. Maybe they're right about this one.Oh, I have news on the naked guy front. I checked the AT subreddit on Reddit.com when I got to town and found out the naked guy was the one who put the water out. His name is Naturist Dave. Atleast I'm not losing my mind and seeing naked guys who aren't actually there.Greg asked about how much this hike will cost. For me, it's a strange situation. When I'm in town with hiker friends I stay in hiker hotels. We split $40 hotels and share laundry costs. I spent a little more in Hiawassee and at Mountain Harbor though. When my Wife comes we stay in nicer places because non-hikers aren't really interested in staying in the class of hotels hikers typically frequent.I'd say I spend about $50/week on food for my food bag. Some folks spend a lot of money on beer/alcohol but I haven't had a beer since Damascus. I get into town and want soda/Gatorade. I'm guessing at the end of this, since I've stayed in nicer hotels it will probably be in the 8K to 10K range. I've also had to buy new clothes because of weight loss. In general, I think I could do this for around $3/mile really comfortably. I know things get expensive as you go North but it's really easy to be cheap here in the South. You're going to want to spend a lot of money on town food though. If you want to do things like slack pack you're going to spend a lot more money as well. I haven't slack packed either so I'm not sure what the cost is. I've taken one shuttle and I can tell you it wasn't cheap.I'd say have no less than $5000 for an entire thru hike. I wouldn't budget less than $7500 though. I wish I could give you an exact number of what I've spent but since the Wife has been coming and bringing stuff from home it's hard to keep track.