Date: 2006-05-11
From: camp

To: Rockfish Gap/Waynesboro
Miles today: 14.7
Weather: light rain

What an exhausting week! For the past few days it has been raining or heavily foggy. Everyone has a different coping strategy--one guy was counting to 10,000 by 8's. I just try to get lost in some daydream. Or if I start to get annoyed with the rain I try to think of gardens and farms and their gardeners and farmers who need the rain to have something to eat or sell. And also I think of what the AT would be like with no rain--2000+ miles of desert--that would be way, way, waaay harder than getting rained on now and then. The only other problem this week was feet--I guess from walking in constantly soggy socks, by the time we reached The Priest Shelter our feet were pretty wierd--everything smelled like mold and our feet were all swollen and peely and discolored, and the bottoms were rubbed very raw.But that didn't last long, and the week was really pretty good. When you start daydreaming so much, everything's good--things can go however you want them to. At the top of one hard climb, I imagined an ice cream shop and enjoyed a cherry vanilla ice cream cone in one of those chocolate-dipped waffle cones, and at the top of another viewless summit I conjured a spectacular view to fill in the blank white fog--a big valley, some horses, 5 or 6 rainbows...why not?It was also an excellent week for animals. Casey got charged by a deer that didn't see him standing there until the last minute. We saw our first bear--a cub maybe--thankfully we didn't meet the mama bear. It was especially exciting for Casey, who had never seen a bear before and had been complaining about it since the beginning--the rest of the night he kept saying, 'Wow! I saw a bear! So they DO exist!' And yesterday on the way in to town, lots of stuff came out in the rain--we saw a bright yellow turtle, a little bullfrog, some kind of really wiggly brown lizard, 13 neon orange spotted inch long salamanders, and the most enormous woodpecker I've ever seen. It was as big as a duck! I actually heard it first, as it usually goes with woodpeckers, and it was so loud that I thought a tree was creaking and about to fall. There were huge chunks of wood flying off as it used its head like an axe on the tree.Right now we are in Waynesboro--don't believe what they say about Hot Springs and Damascus being the friendliest trail towns--so far Waynesboro takes the cake. At the visitor's center we got free cocoa, and a pamphlet with a big list of hiker-friendly establishments, a list of trail angels and their numbers who will shuttle you around anywhere, and a letter of welcome to thruhikers from the   mayor. We were going to use the free tentsites at the Y but were so wet and cold and it was still raining that we caved and got a room at the Quality Inn.We were starving (we hadn't brought quite enough food for the last few days) so we went to Gavid's Steakhouse for the AYCE buffet--highly recommended for hikers. I had 1 plate of salad, 4 of hot food, a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream and sprinkles, and blackberry pie. Definately got my money's worth. Casey had the same only 2 ice creams, apple pie instead of blackberry and 5 plates of hot food. Today after the Inn's continental breakfast we might hit up the AYCE Chinese buffet to load up on calories before heading out. Although we might not be able to move. After Gavid's, we sat in the booth for 25 minutes before managing to peel ourselves out of our seats, went back to the motel, climbed in bed and watched TV, slack-jawed and practically drooling. Sleeping at 7:30! Heaven.