Date: 2010-05-14
From: Damascus

To: Damascus
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Wake up to sounds of someone's stove. Someone yells out "Coffee!" Time to get up I guess. We get out of the tent and realize that there is poison ivy everywhere! Not really anywhere to get away from it here, so we pack up the tent to later search for a new spot. The tent right behind us has some great smells coming from it. Someone that hiked the trail a few years ago is making a bunch of sausage and pancakes! yum! Giving them away to everyone for free. Trail magic off the trail. We skip the free stuff, since I can't eat it anyway, and head to the truck to make our breakfast. Homemade grits with bacon for Skippy, yogurt, coffee, fruit, granola...yum! Fun to see all the hikers walking around, heading for town to find some food. Skippy knows so many of them and names them as they pass by. We wander into town to see what's going on there. Everyone says hi as we pass, and "happy Trail Days!" So happy to be here, and to see people I think. Friendly people. I think everyone has to be friendly to each other to stay sane out there. Have to stay on each others team. Lots of vendors and gear for sale in town. Fun to see pictures people are selling that they took of the trail. Talked to a couple at a booth selling honey. They were excited to tell me about bees, and to hear that I have some. Nice folks. I went back later and bought some honey from them. We end up moving the truck to another free spot, under the shade, kind of out of the way. Great spot, we eat more fruit for lunch. Then head to the park to lay under the shade and Skippy plays his guitar. Great to hear that again! I miss it! I fall asleep for a little, so relaxing. Skippy sees his buddies off in the distance. Thunder, Spanks/Daytripper, Backwards and Conan. We don't meet them yet, but it's nice to see these folks that I've heard so much about! They have on nice clean clothes. So does Skippy! We sang the cotton song, "The touch, the feel of cotton...the fabric of our lives!" Nice for him to feel cotton clothes again, jeans, t-shirt. Earlier in the day, I think, we had wandered down the main part of town. I saw all the places Skippy had stopped, Quincy's, the Library, the laundromat, the Hiker Inn. We stopped at the Baptist Church where they are giving free showers. A bunch of folks are there, there's free coffee, sandwiches, goodie bags. Free postcards to send! I think I put mine in with no address, now that I think of it! Oops! I wrote one to Rach and Izzy. Skippy wrote to his Dad. We saw Laura there, and Matt? We had met Laura on our first day out there, and she's still going! Great! I'm not sure what her trail name is. We decide to find a place for the tent since we can see in the daylight. As we walk back to Tent City, I realize how much of a community is formed with the hikers. They are like family to each other. Nice to feel this. People interact with the thought that they might see each other again, might need each other. Not just pass by and say hey like an afterthought. It's nice! While walking through tent city, we see that there is indeed poison ivy everywhere! (I do have some now, but not much, I'm amazed! Face mask mud, the powdered kind, is great for it, by the way.) So we just find a spot that's kind of more clear than others. We decide to walk through town again and get ice cream! We pass the hostel where someone peed on Skippy's oatmeal. We see MoJoes, and the outfitter. And Pirate and his little compound where hikers can stay. I saw his trampoline and goats, too! We finally got to the ice cream and both got Blueberry cheesecake. Yum! It was so amazing, and didn't really upset my stomach! Must be really good ice cream! Then we layed down in the shady grass in front of the store sign and fell asleep! I think Skippy was passed out for over an hour! This was the beginning of our trend of eating great food, napping, eating ice cream, napping, eating more ice cream, napping, wandering town, and eating more ice cream. Kind of. We made it back to the truck and cooked the steak on the grill I brought. Along with fresh greens from the Rubiera's garden. I had some turkey meatballs I had made. It was amazing! It started raining while we ate, so we ate in the truck. Luxury! I think we wandered the town again, and by dark time made it back to tent city. Skippy had lots of wine and felt sleepy. I just felt sleepy as always. We ran into some more folks as we wandered to the tent. Allright and Half Left (those are sailor terms, by the way! Arg!). Fun to wander around and see who you run into! We were crawling into the tent when we heard some one yelling "Brian Williams!" "Brian Williams, where are you?" Which is funny, cause no one out here calls him Brian, he's Skippy. But Thunder, Spanks, Backwards and Conan had found out his name, and were wandering tent city looking for their buddy! They missed him! We came out of the tent and I got to meet these great folks. Now you have faces to go with your names! Great! I think Skippy fell asleep pretty quick. I was kept up by the band. And then this dog was growling and barking right outside the tent. I thought it was trying to get in or something, so I went out to look at it. Someone had tied it to the tree next to our tent, and it was lonely. All the tents are packed in so tight, it was probably our neighbor's dog. But I eventually slept, nice!