Date: 2009-05-08
From: Doc Knob Shelter, VA

To: Pearisburg, VA 
Miles today: 8.2
Weather: overcast clouds

Cell goodOG notesWe arrived in town early today and started the town routine right away. We went to Pizza Hut for the Lunch Buffet where we all ate a big salad and some pizza. We then went to a Super Walmart for some odds and ends. I ended up going to the same Walmart 3 more times throughout the day. We came back to the room took showers and started our laundry. That was when I discovered the shirt I bought was too small and made my second trip to Wally World. C6 stayed back and watched the laundry this time. When I got back I discovered the second shirt had a hole in it, hence the third trip. The forth trip was to buy some Denatured Alcohol for Red Leg's stove. (The motel usually sells it, but she had run out of it.)Between trips I helped the owner of the motel shuttle hikers on a few errands, I did this 3 times. We enjoyed having the convenience of a car so the few trips I made were well worth the time.One of the things we had to attend to was making sure we have enough food for the next 5 days. We had to add a few things to the stuff that was sent to us. Man is food heavy when you have to carry it on your back, even dry food.The weather forecast still looks like rain and thunderstorms in the near future. It looks like we are having a wet year on the trail. The rainy days outnumber the sunny days. We are determined to do the whole trail no matter what the weather is like. We do hope for better weather in the future. We are aware the Hurricane season hasn't started so that could add some excitement, hopefully it will not be a big hurrican year. The wet weather is affecting our feet. Wet boots and wet socks are causing blisters. Our boots are doing a pretty good job of not letting the ground water in but we're sweating in them, causing most of our wet feet condition. We are taping the blisters and hoping for the best. C6 notesWhat a great day!! We decided to make yesterday and today short days so we could get into Pearisburg around 11am, get a motel room, and enjoy a Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. The hiking today was relatively easy, a view we had at the top of the mountain was spectacular, the day has been sunny and glorious, we're clean and our clothes are clean, and we have had a nice afternoon!!When we got to The Rendezvous Motel and got our rooms, Brenda, the owner, loaned us a car to run around town and do anything we needed to do. We got lunch, went shopping for the things we needed, and stopped at the Post Office. When we got back to the motel, she told us she was running out until about 6pm, and that the car is in our control. She asked that we help hikers if they need a ride anywhere (but she preferred we drive them and not just give them access to the car). Braid showed up here about 20 min ago, but this motel is full, so OG took him to another to find him a room and we'll meet him for dinner (with Red Leg) later this evening.Back to my comment about the spectacular view up on the mountain. We were above clouds on the top of the mountain and it was a beautiful sight. If you've ever flown above the clouds, it looked like that! The only difference was that we were between cloud layers - the sun wasn't visible above us, but the clouds below us were amazing with the mountain peaks peeking out above the clouds. I hope the photos do it justice.I sent out our entries from the past few days and received a question back about the pizza we had at The Partnership Shelter...specifically, what did we do with the trash (the boxes)? There is a dumpster that belongs to the park visitor's center not far from the shelter (about 30 yards away), so we were able to put the trash (and any other trash we had with us) in the dumpster. The trash hauler company must empty it on Fridays because the 30 boxes from the night before were not in the dumpster. We knew they had 30 boxes of pizza from notes left in the shelter log. Old Goat & Check Six