Date: 2003-07-19
From: Howardville Turnpike

To: Rockfish Gap
Miles today: 8.2
Weather: light rain

Last night we decided to sleep with the door to our bunk house open. It rained all night, and the breeze was heavenly! Unfortunately, the mosquitos and no-see ems kept me up all night long! I finally tucked my pants in my socks, put on a long sleeved shirt, stuck in my ear plugs and donned my bug head net.   Don't you know that I looked like an alien fresh in from Mars! :) Well, I woke up with over 100 new bug bites, (that is NOT an exaggeration!)! And just when the first ones are starting to heal!!   Every morning, I make it a habit to notice what time the first rooster crow comes. It is usually between 4:45 and 5:15. However, due to the rain and clouds, it was still pitch dark outside at 4:45 am. I heard a tentative crow that piddled off to complete silence.   I could just hear the rooster thinking, "...but it felt so right!!", as the other roosters look on with disdain. It was straight out of a Gary Larson cartoon! Needless to say, the roosters slept in this morning! :) Tonight is our last night at Rusty's, and he has invited us to go to the Amish church service with him in the morning. I am really looking forward to it. I have never been to an Amish service before, and Rusty says that they are really wonderful.   I am a little concerned about what I am wearing, though! Rusty says that he takes hikers all of the time, and that as long as we wear long pants and a shirt with some sort of sleeve, we are ok. After church, one of the families will take us their home for lunch.   I am really, really looking forward to this! The chance to meet an Amish family and see their home...well, it sounds wonderful! And Rusty says that I will really enjoy the music in the church service. They do not use any musical intruments at all, so the singing is supposed to be really special. We did hike today! We finished the last segment we had to do before Waynesboro. Yep.....we have been around or in Waynesboro for a week, but we are finally IN Waynesboro as far as hiking goes! It is about time! :) Todays hike was beautiful, as usual! I think that Virginia is all gorgeous! I wish that I were a better writer so that I could describe the woods that we walked through today. Here is the thing about forests.....you may walk throughthe same forest for days, but there are subtle differences that make that forest new each day. For instance, there are always trees and undergrowth, but todays forest seems to be one of the oldest I have walked through. The trees stand crowded together and the undergrowth is nearly impenetrable. Add to that hundreds of old trees that have fallen across the forest floor like pick-up sticks, an old cemetery and the ruins of an old homestead.   This was a forest that had stories. The weather was beautiful, and we sailed through the 8 miles. By mid-afternoon, we were at the end of our hike and found ourselves taking advantage of a well-placed gas station to get a cold drink and send our pocketmail. Rusty came to get us, and drove to pick up three other hikers from the YMCA. Along with Doppler, another hiker that joined us, we all descended on The Holler for homemade sloppy joes and home fries. Dinner was great, and the company was wonderful....but the highlight was yet to come! One of the things that I have dreamed about for years, and one of the things that makes Rusty's famous, is his wood-burning hot tub. And tonight, he fired it up for us! He let us ladies go first so Bumpkin and I soon found ourselves sitting in the hot tub, relaxing to the smell of the wood stove. There are so many stars out that the entire sky is lit up. For ten years I dreamed aobut being in this exact spot, and here I am.   Wow.... Well, we got out to let the guys have a turn, and we are now curled up in our bags. So ends another wonderful day on the AT. :)