Date: 2005-06-06
From: Manassas Gap Shelter

To: Sam Moore Shelter
Miles today: 20.3
Weather: clear sky

I'm walking through Sky Meadows right now, the name is a good description for it. It's a large meadow, I've been walking for about an hour and a half through it. The grass is tall, the sun is shining brightly, the trees are widely spaced, very gently rolling. It's a beautiful place to be camping, the only thing is there are signs all over the place that say 'No Camping'.I start moving earlier and earlier every morning. This morning I started walking before 6 o'clock. I probably have 10 miles in already and it's only 9 o'clock now. It's getting hot again; right now it's not too bad but, here comes the season. Walking out of the Green Tunnel this morning, it was really, really buggy. I put on my bug bandana to try to keep them away. This is the second morning in a row that I'm breaking the spider webs on the Trail, and there wre alot of them. Also, there was alot of movement in the woods today. Maybe because it's summer, or maybe it's the locale, or because I was the first one out. Large movement at times, never could see much of anything, just flashes of movement.   I saw several hares running across the Trail. I don't if I have mentioned this lately, but there are alot of snakes out now. I saw 3 black snakes yesterday. I was trying to figure out a way to get one, put it in a bag with Albert's name on it. He's never touched a snake before and he seems a little leery of it.   It could be part of his AT training to leave him a snake to pet.   11:30I got down to Va. 50 at 9:20, and there was a menu there for Doc's Barbeque, which was 8/10s of a mile down the road. I had been to this place before and forgotten about it. I decided to go down and get sausage and eggs for breakfast. I left a note on the board for OC1 and Easy Goer telling them I was going down there. I walked down the road, and they showed up about 20 minutes after I did. We sat in the air conditioning and I ordered breakfast and lunch! I had 3 eggs, sausage patties, toast, coffee, North Carolina pulled pork sandwiches, and a couple of cokes. I picked up some anti freeze to burn in my stove, and walked out of there at 11:00.I got out to the road and stuck my thumb out. A truck pulled up to give me a ride, but they guys waved us off like they didn't want a ride. I don't know what they were thinking. The guy gave me a ride to the Trail. That's where I am now. They are probably still behind me, walking up the road. It was kind of silly, I don't know.The guy was very happy to pick me up. He had actually turned around and came back to get me. His son had attempted a through hike last year and he wanted to talk about it, he even had articles in his truck. 3:10I waited for OC1 and Easy Goer on the path to the Rod Hollow Shelter to see if they wanted to take a break there. We took a 90 minute break there and took our shoes off. I washed out my shirt and played with my water filter, that has been taking a dump on me. I can't get it to filter water very well. When we left, we almost immediately got into this stupid, freaking 'roller coaster'. Roller Coaster is what they call this piece of crap Trail here that goes up 4-500 feet through wet, jagged rocks and back down 500 feet. I swear the water is coming from inside the rocks because every one of them is wet and it hasn't rained. There's lots of mud, marsh and more rocks. It does this SEVENTEEN times in the next 13 miles. I think we are only doing 7.5 miles of it today and I'm already tired of it. It's very annoying. We got in after 5. The Roller Coaster kicked my ass today. We just had a thunderstorm roll through here. It was a pretty good one but it looks like it's going to stop.