Date: 2016-05-31
From: Stealth Camp, mile 833

To: Waynesboro
Miles today: 17.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 81I was motivated right out of the gate today because my destination was Waynesboro, a popular trail town. Wayne's-boro! Wayne's-boro! Party on! Excellent! Near Humpback Mountain I passed a mother and daughter who were looking for and photographing butterflies. They were having the best time together and it made me miss my family. Jason and Kyle used to love going into the woods with me looking for butterflies. Not true.At mile 856.3 I stopped to get water at a stream near the Paul C. Wolfe Shelter. The water source, Mill Creek, has a waterfall and an area deep enough to soak. If I hadn't been so focused on getting to Waynesboro, I would have spent a couple of hours there.After a 17.3 mile day, I emerged from the woods at Rockfish Gap. Waynesboro, to their credit, has a sign posted where the trail exits the woods and you enter civilization. It contains the names and phone numbers of locals who have identified themselves as Trail Angels and are willing to give free shuttle rides into town for hikers. I greatly appreciated the handy list and wish all trail towns would do the same. I walked down a highway ramp and stopped at a roadside gourmet popcorn vendor's stand. Hungry, sweaty, and tired, I quickly consumed a hot dog, Mountain Dew, and Gatorade. I then called Tom "Southerner" Brown who said he'd be there in 10 minutes to shuttle me to town. How cool is that?!Southerner was there in under 10 minutes and gave me a quick driving tour of the town, pointing out restaurants, the grocery store, laundromat, etc. He's been giving rides to hikers for more than a decade and was very personable and helpful. He served in the Army Reserve, the IRS Criminal Division, and some other security related positions I'm not at liberty to share. I started to confess to him that on my 2013 federal tax return, I may have overvalued a Goodwill charitable donation. Specifically, the bag of old clothes probably wasn't worth the $30 I claimed. I decided to keep that to myself, so that Southerner wouldn't feel any pressure to make a phone call to his old office and make that problem go away.I decided to spend two nights in Waynesboro so that I could take a full zero day. I also decided to take advantage of a hostel run in the basement of Grace Lutheran. Good call! They open the doors at 5 p.m. and provide cots in their air conditioned Fellowship Hall, showers (best I've had on the AT so far), Internet, breakfast, and a hiker lounge. It's free, although they appreciate donations to cover their costs.After showering, I walked across town to do laundry and then had a terrific Western omelette dinner at Weasie's Kitchen. On the way back to the hostel, I re-supplied at a grocery store. Other hikers taking advantage of the hostel included Gamel, Legs, Verge, Hawaii, Tailspin, Chicken Feathers, Arrow, Apollo, and Two Ton. As I sat in the hiker lounge thinking the evening couldn't possibly get any better, a fellow hiker popped in a VHS of The Shawshank Redemption...one of my Top 5 all-time favorite movies. I sat there on the couch with Legs and Verge (sisters) and a few others, happy to be off the trail for awhile, and happy to be enjoying a great movie.Fob