Date: 2006-06-11
From: Calf Mountain Shelter

To: Loft Mountain Campground
Miles today: 22.2
Weather: overcast clouds

The difference between marathon runners and thru hikers is simple. Runners will push their body to the limit doing lots of miles as fast as they can for self satisfaction. Thru hikers push their body to the limit for free food and beer. Well that was the case today for me. My Uncle Bill and Aunt Phyllis were meeting me this afternoon in Shenandoah to treat me to a life of luxury. I knew that I needed to get some miles in early before I met them so I did the stupid thing and started hiking kind of early. 8:30 a.m. I hiked for about an hour then called them to set up a point to meet. We had a scratchy phone conversation and in told them where I figured I would be around 1 pm. Now that the meeting point was set all I had to do was be there on time. After I hung up I recalculated the time I had and the miles I had to do. Let¢s just say I had to "get it" in order to get there on time. I took off and was making excellent time. I was averaging over 3 miles an hour. (It doesn¢t seem like a lot but it¢s truckin.) At about 12:30 I was right on schedule. I was set to hit the meeting point right on time with a little jogging down the hill witch isn¢t too uncommon for me. When I came running around the bend at 12:55 I ran into Coach K and 42, with her parents sitting by the trail. 42's parents had come in from Maryland to visit for the day. I said hi but kind of tried to blow by cause I didn¢t want to be late. 42 told me to wait. She had been packing food and offered me an orange. (Fresh fruit is the second best trail magic hikers can get.) I declined since I was late and I had 2 oranges in my pack anyways. I started to walk away when heard those 4 words that make any true thru hiker weak at the knees. "How bout a beer?" I drop down, flipped it and reversed it, and headed back. I knew that Uncle Bill and Aunt Phyllis were familiar with the lifestyle of thru hikers and understood what getting trail magic means to them so they would understand if I was a few minutes late. So I said since they twisted my arm I could have just one. 42 reached into her bag and pulled out a beer. But not just any beer, the King of Beers, Budweiser. I stayed and chatted for a bit, then pressed on. Luckily traffic in the park had them running a little slow so I wasn¢t late. I was sitting on the side of Skyline Drive (the road that runs all the way through the park) waiting when they pulled up. We exchanged hellos and ate some lunch. Then Uncle Bill and I decided to hike 5 more miles before I called it quits for the day. After those 5 miles, we met Aunt Phyllis and got in the car. They offered to give me dinner and put me up for the night in their room at one of the lodges. Once again I am a thru hiker so I couldn¢t resist. When we got to the lodge, I spread my stuff out all over the place to air out. Then we went to dinner. I got the pasta with pork and venison meat. It was fantastic. After dinner we drove to the meadow to see if there were any bears roaming around. There weren¢t any bears but there were about 15 deer. It made me start thinking where the venison came from. After that we retreated to our hotel and avoided the rain that hit during the night.