Date: 2016-06-07
From: outside of dalesville, VA

To: daleville, va
Miles today: 6.0

Day 57 and 58Dregs hereGoing to try to cover a couple of days here. We woke up at the makeshift designated campsite near Hay Rock that we were forced to use because of bear activity closing an area. We were both really excited about only hiking 4.5 miles and then resting for a day and a half. All of our things were packed up in less than an hour. We took it slow but the terrain was easy and we managed to catch up with a hiker named Judy that we had met a couple days ago. She was just a few tenths of a mile from the end of her through hike. She needed to take care of some family things. We stayed and chatted with her for a bit before we pressed on towards relaxation and town food. We stepped out of the woods and into Daleville VA. Our hotel was directly to the right less than 50 yards away. We checked in and picked up a couple of packages people had mailed to us. Our room was up a hill and farther away from the office than we wanted it to be. The room was great, or so we thought, and we immediately went for our packages. The first was the less exciting box from brother containing a few supplies from home that we needed. Thanks Eric! Next we tore into a box from Chicken Hawks mom. It was filled with wrapped presents!!! Chicken Hawk is turning 25 on the 10th and I will be 30 on the 14th. Thank you very much for all of the great gifts!! Next on the agenda was food. We decided this time to only eat at a restaurant once and get food from a grocery store for the other meals to save money. We walked about a half mile to a Kroger and got some food. I got a huge chefs salad and Chicken Hawk got a deli sandwich that had 3/4 lb of meats on it. We were very satisfied. In the same shopping center was an outfitter where we were dreading going to because it was going to take a serious toll on our wallets. We both needed new socks, I needed new shoes, insoles and trekking poles. We had found some insoles for me to try in a hiker free box at the hotel. The outfitter had a clearance section and I was able to find some shoes that would work for 30% off. Lastly I opted to go for a sturdy but simple $60 pair of trekking poles instead of the $140 ones that would have matched Chicken Hawks. It ended up not being that bad. Next we went back to the grocery store to buy some food for later. We got sandwich rolls and all the fixings for some hearty filling sandwiches. We started our walk back to the hotel with all of our heavy stuff. Almost as soon as we got to the main road a truck pulled over and told us to hop in. It was Judy's husband and Chia Pet! They took us right to our hotel door. The next part is always my favorite. We finally showered. Good hot long showers......so nice. We relaxed and made sandwiches that were fantastic for dinner. There was only one problem. Our room was hot despite the AC being on full all day. It was 10 degrees hotter in our room than outside. We walked to the office and they were really nice. They let us move to a new room. We set up in there and turned the air on. While it was cooling we went on a mission to find milk and cookies without going all the way back to the grocery store. After succeeding, we did our laundry and some relaxing. It was getting late when I moved the load from the washer to the dryer. The dryer made a sound like a machine gun.... It did sound like it was actually working possibly even too well but I couldn't keep all the hikers awake with the crazy loud dry so I hung the clothes in the room. It was the end of a great day and after a short fight over who got the better pillows we went to bed. We woke up at about 8am and limped to the free continental breakfast. It was decent and we got to socialize with other hikers. We went back to our room and lounged about before walking back to the same shopping center for more errands. We saw Blue Sky and Bombay on the way. They caught back up because of our zero day and it was nice to see them. We sent a few items home at the UPS store and then went back to the outfitter. They had brought a universal fitted sheet from their other location for Chicken Hawk so that she could attach her blanket to her sleeping pad. I also needed insoles as the free ones didn't quite fit correctly. While doing all of this we realized we should have sent home our cold weather sleeping bags in the ups box we had just mailed. I rushed over to see if they could let us go get our bags and add them to our boxes. The agreed and we walked back to the motel and then back out again. On the way back to the UPS store we saw a famous hiker named Seven and it was cool to chat with him. We sent our heavy bags home and then ran into Schnitzel. We helped him figure out where to send his cold weather gear. Our next stop was our one restaurant visit. A barbecue place called Three little pigs. We sat next to our friends Red Dragon, Brew, Stick, StormTropper and Danger. They left not to long after but we had some really good food to keep us company. The hiker yearbook guy Odie was there and he took our pictures for the hiker yearbook. He also have us a box of Ding Dongs. He is now one of my favorite people. After dinner we hit the Kroger one last time to resupply and then walked home. We spent the evening calling family members while I treated our clothes with permethrin. Once that was done it was all relaxing in our air conditioned room with our nice soft beds. There was another physical altercation over who got the better pillows. Chicken Hawk thought she had won when she firmly grasped the best one with her arms and legs..... I however turned the tides when I wrapped her and the pillow up into the comforter forming one large even better pillow for my use. After that excitement died down we dozed off for a great night sleep.