Date: 2015-05-21
From: Lamberts Meadow

To: Daleville, VA
Miles today: 9.1
Weather: clear sky

We were awoken in the middle of the night to rain. This makes about 6 out of 7 days of having to dry things out. When oh when will we be dry for more than 24 hours?! We managed to go back to sleep to be woken a bit later to the sound of an owl. It was very eerie to hear the sound. It made was shriek into our sleeping quilts even though it was too warm in them. Lavender woke to the smell of something very rancid. She couldn't figure out what it was. She finally got back to sleep. We woke again at 6:15 and decided to get up for the day. We packed everything up, including the wet tent and put our boots on our tired sore feet. Lavender then realized the smell were her boots. Good thing new boots are waiting for us!! We were on the trail by 6:45. We thought we were early but all the other tents except for one were gone. Everyone is heading into Daleville today.    We had a very nice trail - meaning non rocky, no roots and wide for the first three miles. We were making good time considering our feet are really hurting from blisters. But, do not fear, the nice trail soon ended and we were clamoring over the rocks on the great Virginia ridgeline. And, it started to rain. At least we will be in a dry hotel tonight. Lavender has started to use a Frogg Togg poncho that we have modified. Since "one size" does not fit all, we shortened the front and glued the "hem" and one side every 8 inches with "shoe gooo" (all that we had at the time). She wears this over her pack and pack cover then tucks the lose side of the poncho into the pack cover. This keeps her pack dry, including the front straps, and also almost all of her dry - as dry as can be when it pours rain. We continued hiking over the wet rocks now which makes it much more slippery and we had to really watch our step.   We finally came down from the ridgeline and had nice trail again for the last half mile. We were meandering through the woods when all of a sudden we came out of the woods and right there was route US220 in Daleville with hotels and restaurants in both directions.   It was nice to be back in civilization!   We walked a short distance to the Howard Johnson and went inside to check in. Count hadn't worn any rain gear so he was soaking wet and water was dripping off him when we walked into the hotel. Lavender asked the lady at the front desk if the room had had a bath tub since she was looking foward to a hot soaking bath. The lady said she had had a room with a jacuzzi tub and she wouldn't charge us anymore for it since we looked like we needed that jacuzzi. More trail magic! We asked if we had any boxes and sure enough we had 3 packages. One box was Count's replacement trekking pole from Black Diamond. The other 2 boxes were from Lavender's sister. One box had our replacement boots which we were really looking forward to getting . The box also had some unexpected goodies in it. It had cream filled doughnuts from Sunnyway which we love and ate right away. The other box had deer jerky in which will be great on the trail. The deer jerky was from Lavender's brother-in-law who had got the deer hunting. We went to our room, took a shower, set up our tent in the room to dry it out and relaxed a bit. Then it was off to lunch. We had an enjoyable lunch, walked back to our room, washed our clothes and relaxed for a few hours. We then walked or should I say limped to an Outfitters and Kroger ' s for resupply. We saw other hikers at both places. As we were talking with some other hikers, we were told we did the "Triple Crown" when we hiked Dragon's Tooth, McAfee Knob, and Tinker Cliffs in one day. And, this was the most strenuous hike of Virginia. No wonder we were tired!!   Next, we had dinner, limped back to our room. The jacuzzi was used with Epsom salt to help heal our feet. We are concerned about Count's one blister. We are hoping the salts and being off trail for a day will help the healing process.