Date: 2007-05-29
From: Pearisburg, VA

To: Pearisburg, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

I took another zero day today, supposedly to rest my tired feet. But, as usual, this zero day was not all that restful, I just don't carry a fully loaded pack all day.I had to change rooms at the Hotel so I packed up first thing in the morning then waited for them to finish cleaning the room I would be moving into. When it was ready I unpacked again to empty my pack so I could walk to the supermarket for food.Just like most of my 'zero' days, I ended up spending most of the day walking around town doing various errands and tasks. I found a battery for my watch, which had been showing a low battery symbol for several days. I also went to the post office and mailed a small box of things back home then mailed a second box to myself in Daleville where I should be in about 6 days.Shopping is always a problem because I strive to make sure I won't starve in the woods but then groan under the heavy weight of my full pack as I stumble out of town and up the trail the next day. So food shopping is always a balancing act between getting enough to fuel the trip but not too much that will break the back. Another perhaps bigger problem for hikers is that supermarket portions are usually too large for single people to consume in just 3 to 5 days so what are hikers to do with the leftovers? For example, I only need about 1 quart of powdered milk for the next section but milk only comes in boxes of 5 1-quart packages. So, I keept 1 package and 'bounced' the other 4 to myself in Daleville. Why carry a half poundackage of brown sugar when I only need a few tablespoons, and is the rest of the sugar worth the cost of the postage it takes to mail it to myself up the trail in Daleville? These are just some of the things one must ponder in the supermarket aisles when one doesn't have a pantry in which to store bulk items. It also ensures that not all of the items one desires to eat while on the trail will make it into the pack!The single most frustrating item on this trip has been the time it takes to extract digital photos from my camera and upload them to the web. I spent nearly 4 hours at this task today and got 2 photos successfully up to my journal before my time on the computer expired. I walked the 1.5 miles to the library but only a few of their computers had USB ports that I need to plug my camera into. The machine I was assigned to had only one port so I first had to copy all 290 photos from my camers to the computer's hard drive before then copying them to my thumb drive for safe keeping. Unfortunately the library has a 100 MB limit on copy file sizes so I had to break the normally simple copy process up into several separate jobs and the photo files ended up being corrupted in the copy process. So, in the end I left the library after more than an hour with nothing to show for my time and nearly 3 extra miles of walking for this 'zero' day. Photo uploading was such a simple and easy process when I tested it at the Bayfield library, and it has turned out to be such a struggle here on the trail due to variable machines, constantly different software, and short limits on allowable usage times (usually less than 1 hour).I finally found a caf© in town with a fast computer and was able to complete the copy process to my thumb drive. I then selected the 30+ photos I wanted to upload to the web and copied them to another folder for easy locating. But, when I began uploading them to the web the caf© owner said I'd spent an hour already and I should come back again tomorrow if I still had more to do - a nice way of giving me the boot even though no one else was waiting to use the machine. So again, I left after having managed to upload only 2 photos to my journal. I may come back again tomorrow before leaving town but will then have to make the steep climb out of town later in the heat of the day. We'll see how I feel about this in the morning.