Date: 2005-05-22
From: Lamberts Meadow Shelter

To: US 220
Miles today: 9.4

The older guy whose name I couldn¢t remember is 3 Feathers. He¢s an interesting guy. He¢s 61 or so, obviously in good shape because he¢s out here on the AT and pulling 25 mile days almost every day. He is blind in 1 eye and has artificial parts in his heart. He¢s one hell of a hiker, walking up the miles.His partner, Limestone, who he was walking with, is also about his age, ended up having to get off the Trail a day or two ago due to a blown out Achilles¢ tendon. This morning I got up pretty early, about 5:40 or so, because I went to bed pretty hungry last night. I had cooked last night and I was still a little hungry. I considered cooking again but, it started to rain so I just went to bed. This morning I was determined to get up and actually cook some grits before we left, which I did.Then we took off at about 6:30. Today¢s walk into Daleville was particularly physical. A lot of torturous winding around, over, through, and down big, house-sized boulders and boulders sticking out of the ground and some you needed to use your hands to scramble over. Also, there were a lot of loose rock and roots underfoot. It was pretty slip and slid-y. It was also a very picturesque walk. Quite a few views off to the right with a body of water, from what we found out later is a reservoir for the Daleville and Troutville areas.Today also, once again, we found out that the book for Virginia screwed up. We certainly did more than 9.4 miles. That¢s what I¢m recording because that¢s what the book says. We talked to other hikers later. There were landmarks that were listed in the book, that were missing. There were other landmarks that were switched around in the wrong place. Certainly more than 9.4 miles. By now, we are pretty accurate, me in particular, at guessing the speed and distances in which we walk. We hauled ass this morning at a pretty good clip. It took us 4 hours to do 9 miles? No way.We made it down to Daleville at 10:30. I immediately stopped at the bank near the Trail to pick up money. We went to the Howard Johnson¢s Express, where I had a reservation. I wanted to keep running and not fall behind because I would have lost the $60 I put on my credit card to reserve the room. We checked in, dropped our bags and ran down to Shoney¢s. We had been talking about going to breakfast there. Short of Shoney¢s, OC1 noticed a sign at this place called Country Cookin¢ that said ¢ All You Can Eat Breakfast $ 4.99." We went in there. What a good call! The buffet was wonderful and we pigged out! Once again, OC1 amazed me with the amount of food he¢s putting down now. It¢s a tremendous amount of food. Like 5 platefuls.Albert (Easy Goer) says his stomach tightens up when he gets into town and he can¢t eat very much. It¢s beyond my comprehension that you can hike and come into town and not be hungry. It¢s alien to me.We ate and started heading down to the hotel. We walked by it because we stopped and asked some people where the outfitters¢ was. It was about 12 mile past the hotel in the Kroegers¢ strip mall. We went all the way over there only to find out they were closed Sundays. Kind of a bad move for an Outfitter on the Trail, but they won¢t be opened again until Monday at 10 o¢clock. So, I went into Kroegers¢ to use their bathroom and buy some candy bars and Woolite. The clothes that I¢m wearing now are bug proof clothing called Buzz Off that has permethrin built in to it. I¢m trying to take care of how I wash them so I don¢t wash the stuff out. We went back to the room for showers and laundry. I elected to be the last one to use the bathroom because I wanted to completely soak down in a tub of scalding hot water before I took a shower. I¢m really smelling badly. I wanted to make sure I soaked out all that junk I was also the last one to do the clothes. I soaked those too, before I washed them. I took the garbage can from the room and filled it with water and Woolite and dumped everything in there and let it soak for an hour and a half before I stuck it in the washing machine.While we were sitting there, Albert ( Easy Goer) was reading the paper that he had picked up from the front desk. He mentioned that he would like to go see a movie, specifically Star Wars Episode 3 that had just come out. So, I went down to the desk and said to the owner there, ¢ You¢re going to have to talk to me like I¢m a child, ok? I don¢t know where I am, I don¢t know where to go, who to talk to, and what I¢m doing. I just want to go see a movie.¢ He looked up the movie theater for me and looked up the times. Then he gave me a business card which belonged to a guy named Delwood, who apparently specializes in being a Trail Angel in this area. We called him up and made arrangements for him to take us back and forth to the 5:30 showing of Episode 3 in Roanoake. That¢s exactly what we did. We made sure our laundry was done, got everything ready and waited for Delwood to show up. Drove in to see the movie. Roanoake. I¢ve heard that name so many times before, I expected it to be a bigger town. It¢s actually a very small town. Very suburban. It was a little bit of a surprise for me.The movie itself was a long movie, 3 hours long. It was good because it tied everything together with all the other Star Wars but, of course it¢s a sequel, and sequels are always disappointing. We were all disappointed. We got out of the theater and Delwood was waiting for us there. We took up a collection between all 5 hikers that eventually ended up going. We picked up $23 to give him for gas. He drove us back to Daleville to Rancho Viejo, the Mexican restaurant right across from our hotel. We got there just before they closed. It¢s a really good place. Albert and I shared a Fajita Texana for 2, which was just excellent. Incredible amounts of food.We actually had to enlist OC1, twist his arm, to finish our fajitas off.We went back to the hotel room, and each did our own little thing, made calls, packed stuff, and went to bed at about 11:30.