Date: 2017-09-12
From: Calf Mountain shelter

To: Charlottesville
Miles today: 7.9
Weather: drizzle

Of all the scenarios for how today was likely to end, it's fair to say I did not rate highly the prospect of Dirt and Sweetblood getting spontaneous tattoos on a kitchen table from a guy they'd met a couple of hours before. But that unpredictability is just one reason why I really like trail life. Sitting around in an anarchic share house in Charlottesville was the polar opposite to how the day began, in a shelter in the woods. Considering yesterday's literal and figurative marathon, we all bore up remarkably well physically and could have done a normal day of hiking but we were grateful instead to do be doing a short day to Rockfish Gap, the end of the Shenandoahs.A series of other factors prompted this. One was the warning we'd been repeatedly given about potential torrential downpours as the remnants of Hurricane Irma reached us. Another was the presence in nearby Charlottesville of Pepa, an AT and PCT alumni who'd helped at Scout and Frodo's with me for several weeks as we ministered to this year's PCTers. And, because we're hikers, there was also the existence of a famous-on-the-AT all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet for $11 in Waynesboro. There was not much to say about the 7.9 mile section of trail to Rockfish Gap. It was pretty fast and despite a few minutes of rain at the start that prompted me to use for the first time the umbrella I'd been carrying since Harpers Ferry, it was mostly dry.Needless to say, our top priority was the Chinese buffet and we took advantage of the list of trail angels offering to give lifts into town. The restaurant staff were obviously used to hikers and showed us where to stow our packs well away from where their aroma could affect any real paying customers then ushered us to the buffet. Maybe my standards tend to veer towards quantity over quality but the buffet was the business and we went back for plate after plate. And how many Chinese buffets feature mac and cheese?We were sitting around digesting when Pepa and a friend, Carly, turned up to collect us in two cars. It was a generous effort, given that a few days before I asked if the tramily could come and crash at his house. It all worked out awesomely, Pepa's two flatties were kind enough to welcome us in then he shuttled us to and from the supermarket to resupply. Then he went to his cafe to grab the leftovers from the bakery section and brought them back. As befits someone who'd hiked 7000+ miles, he understood hiker trash and our needs.The evening might have been complete through watching another movie designed to educate Dirt's gaps in her iconic movie history, with in this case a screening of Pulp Fiction. but then Pepa's flatmate was talking about having a tattoo gun as his hobby. The next thing I knew, Dirt and Sweetblood were getting tattoos behind their right ears.It was the perfect random moment to end a classic AT day.Life is good.AT fact of the day: The Chinese restaurant included fortune cookies and some of ours were spot on. Dirt's said: "Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned." Mine was also on point: "You are one of the people who 'goes places in life'." No mention of the 3mph bit, though...