Date: 2009-05-15
From: Daleville, VA

To: Damascus
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

While I was struggling to get to Daleville, everyone else was enjoying themselves in a Mexican Restaurant. Not knowing about my newly crowned name at Woods Hole Hostel, Bound and Hellbender described me to their waitress and asked her what name she would give me. She thought 'La Munyeca' would be fitting (doll in Spanish). When told of this, I wasn't exactly grabbed. I would much prefer a name in French. Plus, I was just getting used to 'Morning Glory'. But Hellbender really liked 'La Munyeca'. He liked it so much that he would embellish it..."La Munyeca de la Montanyes... Aie, Aie, Aie!"   He thought I could carry castanets in my hipbelt pockets and whip them out into flamenco movements when asked my name. Then he suggested 'Shimmy' as another possibility. I said I would think about it...   I didn't get much sleep again. My feet hurt too badly, the bed was too small for me, and I was too hot in the flannel sheets. After some cereal for breakfast, Bound drove Hellbender and me to the Post Office to pick up our maildrops, and then dropped us off at the Plaza while she went to pick up Jeremiah Johnson at the James River Footbridge (man, that guy moves fast!). I wanted to get my hair cut, but there were no openings. (They were booked with pedicures). So, I went over to the coffee shop to hang out. There, I found none other than Tax Dollar! He was not going to Trail Days. I enjoyed a blueberry scone and latte while marking down my mileage from the past couple of weeks. Tax Dollar had gone out to do something and walked back with a piece of pizza in his hand, pointing at it. Some kind of promotion was going on, and there were several boxes of pizza as giveaways. Perfect! Hellbender returned from his shopping trip and we all dug in. Bound and JJ returned and helped themselves, as well, and we went back to her house to pack up the car for Damascus. Five people, one 75 pound dog, and all of our gear had to fit in her car.   The ride was not as fun as I thought it would be. Bones was not feeling great, and everyone was kind of quiet. Geronimo didn't have enough room in the back, so he kept sticking his head and paws into the backseat space and drooling. At one point, he had a paw draped over one of my shoulders and his head snuggled against the other! The ride was longer than I thought it would be, and I was happy when we finally arrived. I had made arrangements to stay at the Hiker's Inn again, and everyone else planned on tenting in the 2008 area in Dennet's backyard below the bridge. There, Bound reunited with her good friend, Low, who she hiked with last year. Hellbender and I felt a little excluded and joked about how we would act when we came back next year. We walked over to tent city (which we had to pay to get in) to find Birdbath's wife (also '08ers), and it was there that I ran into Truckin'! It was so nice to see her, but the interaction was short, and I would only see her for one other brief moment the entire weekend. We had pastries that were being served by the Baptist Church for dinner, and went back to the 2008 section to hang out. Dennett had a trampoline out, which I was sitting on when Bones and Hellbender decided to start jumping on it. It was like being on a roller coaster, and I was screaming to get off! Then, I decided to start taking pictures, which turned out to be hilarious, and I had the best time laughing at this newly found source of entertainment.   Unfortunately, I was about to get no sleep again that night, due to some extraordinarily loud snoring from my bunkmates. I missed the nice group I shared the room with the last time I was there. This would make 3 sleepless nights in a row...