Date: 2005-05-12
From: Relax Inn, Atkins, VA

To: The Place, Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Woke up and walked up the road this morning for breakfast at Rhonda¢s Restaurant, where I drank copious amounts of coffee. Poet left after breakfast ¢ she¢s skipping Trail Days because of a family commitment . After we said goodbye I conned a (sharp) needle from the nice ladies at the gas station mini mart next to the motel and, with another half hour of digging, finally extracted that bastard of a splinter. Of course, now the gaping raw hole in my foot needs to heal, but that feels like a solidly satisfactory Next Step. I packed up, since we had to be out of the motel by 11; but since our prearranged shuttle wasn¢t picking us up until 1, we had a sort of mass exodus away from the Relax Inn and back up the road (all two doors) to, bien sur, the Dairy Queen, where the opportunity for a follow-up Blizzard seemed too present to be ignored, even though after yesterday¢s I¢d told myself that that was really enough soft-serve. Don¢t know who I think I was kidding. Another lovely hot day and while waiting for the shuttle the Gypsy sisters rolled in ¢ they¢d been a day or so behind for a while ¢ and it was great to see them again. Bootz and Blue Light showed up too, and so did Toolman and Vinni Vidi Vici (remember the sweetly snoring bread boys from the Holiday Inn Express back in Hiawassee, so many moons [not really] ago?) and along with the boys was Grits, the world¢s sweetest big-eyed con artist dog, evidently homeless and temporarily adopted by TM and V3, who were trying to find him a home. It took every ounce of common sense I have (a commodity in which I am arguably deficient, okay), blaring at full volume, to keep from taking that dog. I know, I know, I haven¢t got enough money or even a place to live post-trail, and it wouldn¢t be fair to take a dog without knowing I could care for him the right way. But still. That dog. My God. (I wasn¢t the only one battling my conscience on this one; I found out later that Hairball and Snowbunny had a bit of a tiff when he was all ¢let¢s take him!¢ and she was all ¢we CANNOT adopt a dog right now.¢ The dog¢s that good.) And I also met (who would have thought the Dairy Queen parking lot would turn out to be such a social place?) Hopeful and Red Wing, whose journal I had read prior to leaving. The shuttle finally arrived to take us back to Damascus, and the drivers, from the Baptist church in town, plied us all with drinks and snacks and tickets to the church-sponsored dinner that night, and were generally wonderful. We dropped off Serenity at the bus station on the way(she was going home for her mother¢s graduation, very exciting). It was bizarre to watch the road speed by ¢ to see the distance it had taken us a week to travel on foot covered in an hour by car. Once in Damascus, Tent City seemed unappealing and far and there was lawn space outside The Place, so Scholar and Linux and Pacman and I set up tents there. I walked down to Mt Rogers, the outfitters, to pick up the bounce box I'd left there a week ago (I had a clean tank top therein which I was dying to change into) and started seeing the influx of people. Insane, how full this small town is starting to get. The church dinner potluck was in the evening and a massive group of us were there. Pacman and Linux were hyped up to run into Irish, a southbounder from last year whose register entries are predictably derisive of northbounders, so they were all ¢Hi IRISH, we¢ve been noticing your ENTRIES¢ all as if they were gonna go or something, but Irish was mostly confused and was all ¢uh, hi.¢ Yet another instance where internally-generated excitement outstrips that which is warranted by actual events. But that¢s what thru-hikers are best at, I think: making their own fun.Being here is an absolute test of attention span: everywhere I turn there¢s another face I haven¢t seen in weeks. I¢ve gone entirely spastic and ADD. Longhaul! Bubble Toes! Mouth! Freeze-Dried! It¢s fantastic. Went down to Dot¢s with Pacman (home of beer and a jukebox, every hiker¢s bare necessities) and later Linux showed up and so did Nick and Dave, and there was much shouting and carousing, because somehow, out here, five days without seeing someone is a very, very long time. Back at The Place, which was filled with people pouring in and out of every exit, I quite literally stumbled into Proteus, began to keep walking, and then did a double take and whirled back. I felt a stupid grin spread across my face and we blocked the doorway for a minute with a huge hug: Proteus ¢ who in real life goes by Kevin ¢ is an old buddy and coworker from the year I lived in New Hampshire doing trailwork. We hadn¢t seen each other in almost three years, though we¢d been in contact via email. I knew he was on the trail, but he¢d been about a week ahead of me the whole time; I¢d been hoping to find him at Trail Days. Hooray for old friends!