Date: 2004-05-02
From: Nick Grindstaff Monument

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 24.7
Weather: light rain

Whew - Virginia at last!!! Damascus was a special marker for me because it is more than 1/5th of the milage of the trail and it signifies 3 states down: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. We weren't necessarily planning on reaching Damascus today, but it seems that on the trail towns are some sort of gravitatioinal black hole sucking you in with an unstoppable force. Before you know it you're willling to walk like 35 miles at 10 miles/hour just to get there and it seems totally reasonable to do so. We set out around 8:45am with some sun in the sky. By the time we reached the first shelter 6.4 miles later, the sun had dissappeared and we had just come in from our first rainstorm of the day. Wouldn't be our last. We snacked at the shelter until the rain settled down and then pressed on. The rain persisited off and on all day, though it never really seemed to stop -there was always some sort of vertical precipitation be it from the trees or the sky. It wasn't terribly cold or windy, so the rain wasn't too bad, but we were all thoroughly wet by the days end. Wet boots and socks, despite the gaitors, wet clothes - even to our underwear, wet puppy hairdo, and water pooled in the bottom of my pack cover. My fingers were even a bit pruned.About a mile before we reached the next shelter we passed over Mc Queens Knob and it started to pour. Like an oasis in the desert, an emergency makeshift shelter emerged from the mist and we ran for it, huddling inside. This wasn't a true shelter made for sleeping, this sucker was built in the thirties log cabin style and it had chinks in the wall big enough to stick my arm through. The roof was solid steel (or tin?) and that's all that mattered because about a minute after we got in there it began to pour in earnest. The wind picked up driving the rain into the shelter opening and forcing us to grab our packs and take refuge in the far rear. It's not so much that we were looking to stay dry - we were already wet - but the rain and wind were cold on our skin and I just didn't feel like being chilled. We sat the downpour out, which took nearly 1/2 hour and decided to press on to Damascus, about 12 miles away with an ETA of 7:30pm at the latest. There's an Italian restaurant in Damascus called Sicily's that serves calzones bigger then your head and we were determined to hit that up before it closed. Some dangle a carrot at the end of the stick, others dangle a calzone. Works for me.It was a really wet and semi-miserable afternoon. The ground was slick with mud and the air was gray and heavy. But Damascus would be our salvation - a beacon of light illuminating our path. The town mantra was already pounding through my head "Food. Shower. Laundry. Bed..." and my feet went into autopilot mode - plodding out the last few miles. Around 5:45pm with 3.5 miles left we reached the TN/VA border and stopped to cross it in unison. Next thing I know I can see the houses of Damascus and after what seemed like a lifetime, I'm on Damascus blacktop, headed toward downtown. Once in town my mantra switched to "Please let Sicily's be open" and it was. We arrived just after 7pm and it was open until eleven. It was awesome to walk in out of the rain after walking almost 25 miles, drop our bags, take off our wet gear, have a seat and be served piping hot food. We feasted and played some tunes on the jukebox After weeding through all of the country (no offense intended - it's just not my thing) I played "Roll Out" as a tribute to LudaChris, "Where it's At" by Beck just to give me something to nod my head to, and "Round Here" by the Counting Crows by accident but it was all good because it got Van Gogh all sentimental and he sang along. It wasn't a wasted quarter after all. After dinner we found beds at The Place hostel which is a pseudo-dump, but for $4 a night you get what you pay for. Took showers, hung our gear out to dry, and think I was asleep by eleven or so.