Date: 2007-04-30
From: Thunder Hill Ridge Shelter

To: Glasgow, VA
Miles today: 50.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Oh my dear Trailjournal, how ashamed I am that I have not updated in so long! I am so itchy as I write this!(((READERS. This is a very long entry. The end is the best part, so check out the wild story if you don't read it all!)))We've really been focused on the Trail, and breezed in and out of Daleville/Pearisburg both over the last 2 weeks, and so have not had the time/energy to update with all the many stories I have gathered!Hmm.. where do I begin? I feel like a major transition is taking place within me here in Virginia, and I want to share all the great highs, scares, fears, joys, and pains of the last weeks since I updated since Easter (sorry sorry sorry!). Hawk and I have met many people - passed and been passed by dozens of other hikers attempting this great feat, and I wish I had been regular about updating. Several highlights/major things that have happened:5) EMOTIONS: Had a large bit of a VA blues moment before Pearisburg. Felt purposeless (hormonal, albeit), and frustrated and sick of hiking monotony. I missed home a lot, and the Tech tragedy was pretty hard (more below). Going home was wonderful in some ways, but also made my return to the trail (after the exciting first days back) more difficult. Hawk really cheered me up and I found that after pushing onward gently, and not thinking too much, I somehow got over that emotional wall with more miles behind me, and new and fun friends/adventures - plus a good deal of reflection. My Grandparents (hi!!) came and took me and Hawk to lunch and resupplied us in Bland, VA. Really motivating to be with them! Especially as it poured rain during lunch!It is hard to watch many people cruise by us sometimes. A group of 10 or so (on a "Death March" or "Misery March" they dubbed it into Waynesboro in 6 or 7 days from Daleville) just rolled through. They are all very fit and moving quite quickly. Sometimes it's hard to "Hike Your Own Hike" when everyone's counting and cruising so much, but we have out 15 mile/day or so pace now, and will make it on our schedule. I love the way we enjoy our time together, enjoy nature, and I am proud that I have not skipped any sections of the trail or done any major slacking miles. I realized that if I want to get to Maine before I go to Yale, I had better get serious! I ditched 7 lbs in P-burg (I had picked up some stuff in NJ over Easter). My pack is super light now! Crazy light. Hawk and I have seperated food (we were doing all meals together), and that helped me as well gain a better balance of independence in our hiking partnership. The radio has been sweet. I love love love love (get the point?) NPR. I used to hate it in the car with my parents, but now its my true love for my intellectual stimulation. My thoughts wander all over the world - from Iraq to climate change to birdwatching to war. Love it! Then I fall back from Morning Edition and All Things Considered into the sweet silence and sounds of the wilderness. Or the gaps of it between the Blue-Ridge Parkway. :0)4) COMPANIONS: Another highlight has been the people we have been around!! I love this trail community. Some greats (all are great, but these are some people we've hiked around): Zero - 40ish, formerly worked at a troubled boys institute, reminds me of a director from Cheley camps! Awesome guy who started in January. Out for the experience. Will refer to him later in this entry. Molasses, of course, NJ pride! College NJ grad in English Lit who is totally doing his own thing. Triple H/Swamp Yankee - 2 kids in college from RI. Found a puppy in the woods (SO CUTE) and bravely rescued it, gave it shots, found an owner for it! 5-string - just out of the Navy, 38 years old, carries a banjo and hikes with his coon dog Daisy. Rambo Ron- this guy we stayed with at a shelter for a night. Hawk met him this summer on the Trail. He had started in Maine in May. of 2006. He's been on the trail for TEN months! wow. ANd still had 1500 miles to go when we met him. He carries about 65 lbs (thus his name) and is about 60 years old.Tyvek - met the man walking uphill. Wearing no shoes. Why? "Oh, I gave up shoes in '72." He's a SOBO who pinched a nerve and got on the Trail again around Daleville. Wears no shoes and no backpack. All his gear is literally covered in Tyvek. There is no way to explain this man. He is walking for a cause that I also don't know about. His website is www.thelongwalkhome.org, and there are pix on it. See for yourself the wildness! What a character!Mt Cameron/Toastyshine - Duke grads, about 29, the latter just out of a captaincy in the Army soon into an MBA, the former about to head to medical school for orthopedics. Had great talks with both about medicine and ROTC. Ladybug/Natural High - couple we've been around for a few weeks. Young 30s couple RV'ed it out of California and into SW Virginia this year. They are super chill - real people - and both quit their jobs to come out and thruhike! It's awesome to have a ladyfriend. We were talking, and after meeting a couple hundred hikers, only about 10 of us have been women. Insane, huh?   POWER! Many others rolling through- fish n chips, Hellbender, the Iron Chefs (cool Teach for America guy), many young guys in their 20s, Limestone (who got injured and we'll hopefully see on a flip-flop), and so many more!Hawk is my solid companion though, my friend through everything, and has been such a blessing of advice, protection and fun on this journey. I don't know how we spend so much time together and still laugh about everything. Life is pretty awesome.3) BUGS/WEATHER: maybe this makes number three on the list of highlights because it's all im thinking about while I write this entry, but seriously, I am so ridiculously itchy right now!! There were these little bugs, gnats or something like black grains of sand that ate me ALIVE two days ago at the Bryant Ridge Shelter (such a SWEET shelter, by the way). Ladybug gave me some cream, but I am still havin trouble concentrating.Weather has been really crazy. We had a 5 inch snowstorm outside of Atkins, VA, and the beginning of this week, it hit 90 degrees. We chilled at the Jennings Creek for 4 hours on Monday, just swimming and trying not to die of heat exhaustion! Really shocked my body. I was knocked out by it and we did two 10 mile days. It is now raining and cooling off. Today was 15 into Glasgow, VA, and I was so grateful for the cooler weather! SO ITCHY. 2) THE TECH MASSACRE and PEARISBURG: Time has flown lately. And I can't believe that the VT tragedy is over two weeks ago, because it seems so fresh in my mind. I was listening for weather the day after the snowstorm as we walked out from the second Forest Service road post-Marion (stuck 5 miles out of Marion as freezing rain soaked us and it snowed. We decided to emergency camp as our winter gear was all gone and we were soaked and icing up.). As the news hit, I listened for almost the entire day as more and more craziness unfolded in the news. We were so close to Blacksburg, and yet, I could have been 1 million miles away. So sad. Life is so peaceful on the Trail, and so simple. There is no crazy society, with pressures and derangements, but just God's love shining forth for every person to enjoy his creation. The Trail is funny like that - seeing a stone wall on a random hill that Zero and others confirmed must have been the work of slaves in the past, seeing former areas of logging or of a Revolutionary War crossing. We are walking literally through past and present American history. What a country! The American anthem came on the country station today, and I was so filled with love for this country. I just love America so much. The more I see, the more I walk, the more I live, the more I love this country and its people, its secret haunts and paths that live under popular culture. Embodied particulary these last weeks as rural VA got hit hard - Inspired by the way the nation rebounded and held together for Virginia this last month. As we came into Pearisburg, a town so close to Blacksburg, I really got hit by how close to home the massacre had hit. Ribbons on every lamppost, block letters on every fastfood/church/motel sign, praying for mercy, for Jarrett Lane - a local student who was on a full scholarship, and had just been granted a full ride to UF, looking up to heaven for comfort. Christianity was very present in the small Southern town. I was happy they had the comfort of heaven to look to. When we went to the post office, I told the woman working there how I thought her ribbon was beautiful - it had a cross pinned to it with VT in orange written on the cross' maroon paint over two ribbons. I told her how sorry I was. She took off the pin and gave it to me. I almost started crying. The ribbons are tied to my pack, the cross inside of my pack (couldn't keep it pinned). I feel like I am doing the small thing I can to walk with that community so close. At the Rite Aid across the street, the woman at the counter told me that here 3 kids had been soldiers in Iraq, that two were still there, and that here third son had come home on the GI bill to get his education at VT, and was in the building next to Norris Hall, where the massacres took place. Writing about this is making me all worked up again, but I just wanted to write about it, because it has been so much on my mind and prayers. This trail led me into the heart of American media, tragedy and reality. It was tough. 32 people. Just my age. Just like that. 1) ANIMALS: On a much, much lighter note, the animals and flora have been amazing! Mom! The Rhodedendrons are blooming! They are so gorgeous. Trillium's out (learned the name from Bunny, a section hiker this AM). Saw a couple of snakes drawn out by the heat lately, a snail today, and a turtle a few days ago!I am SO itchy!!!!! I need Grams to make me some baking soda/water. Back to the point: while hiking big miles over Dragon's Tooth. No, actually it was right before Tinker Cliffs (before which we had some sweet dinner at the Catawba BBQ Homeplace! Mmm!) - I saw a black bear cub!!! Hawk was about 200 yards in front of me when all of a sudden, this little cub - the most adorable thing in the world - climbed onto the trail! I wanted to run and grab it and cuddle with it, and sleep with it like a teddy bear, but of course I didn't do that. I froze out of instinct, waiting for Mama to arrive. Hawk says it was older than a cub - maybe 9 months or so, and no Mom arrived to maul me to death. It ran off into the distance down the trail toward Hawk, and I yelled at him, "BEAR COMING!" Whoops! Hawk caught a glimpse, but I probably made him a lil nervous, though he would NEVER admit it!I smell popcorn in this library. Yum! The craziest thing that has happened to me on the whole Appalachian Trail happened about a week ago right after dinner at the Homeplace. We hitched in from the first road, ate dinner, caught up with Molasses (finally!), and a Brit named Packhorse. We (Hawk, Zero, and I) dropped our packs across from the Homeplace - a delightfully restored former plantation house. Hawk and I had already pulled 16 miles that day, and decided to do 7 more to be able to hit Daleville by Saturday to get to the Outfitter where we had some awesome maildrops! Thanks Dad! Love you!Anyway, we were slacking those 6 miles with some gatorade and cookies at 7:30. We walk through a cow pasture, and I see a bull with great big horns on my left. The AT walked right through about 5 cows chilling in the field. The bull just lay there peacefully, and I walked confidently through. All of a sudden, about 1/3 of the way through the 200 yard stretch of pasture, fenced in between two "stiles" (triangular ladders you climb over about a million times on the trail that don't let livestock through. Hard on the knees.), a bull without horns starts snorting at us! Zero goes, "Whoa, buddy, we're not gonna hurt ya." I start getting a little ancy. Then he starts trotting next to us. We think he was very aggressive and that some of his women/calves were on the other side of us. Then Zero and Hawk start walking even fast, and poor me, last in the line of hikers, gets a little freaked. The bull turns to me, looks me right in the eye, and starts at me! Literally! I FREEZE. I did not know what to do. Thoughts ended. The whole situation was just completely absurd to me, and felt unreal. No one had coached me on what to do if charged by a bull! Zero yells something and Hawk bangs his poles to distract the bull from me, still standing there helplessly in the same place. (Yes, yes, poor damsel in distress.) It worked! The bull whips around and starts charging Hawk FULL ON. Hawk runs like the wind (note: no pack on. Thank the Lord!) - I have never seen anyone run so fast! The bull is very mad and hyper now and realizes he can't get him. Zero has also run out of harm's way, and there I am, still frozen solid in the same place! The bull turns around, bucking, and Zero, the former troubled boys' counselor, gently gets me out of my trance of absurdity by yelling, "ALLEY, RUN!!!!!!" I snap out of it as the bull starts at me again, and sprint like the dickens to the edge of the field, and then continue to run and giggle on and off for the rest of the night as the adrenaline keeps resurging again and again! Zero is now Zero Torador, Hawk "The Matador." I wrote in a register that the Matador had to hold my hand through a herd of cows the next day as I pathetically became gripped with fear and nearly refused to walk next to the female cows, and Ladybug asks me, "Who is this 'MATADOR' and WHY is he holding your hand?" We had some good laughs about that. I love women! -----Well, folks, that's pretty much the comprehensive scoop on the last few weeks! What an adventure! Romance, creation, the real world, animals, heat, and a crazy bullfight. Can we top it? Stay tuned! We should hit Wboro in about 5 days, and then its a 150 miles to Harpers Ferry. We hope to be there by the 17th or so of May, and get a good chunk of PA done before my sister's graduation! Are you really old enough, little sis, to be done with HS? Wow. Time is flying for everyone I love, not just me!Still hiking the AT without supplementary oxygen! Haven't taken a zero since a day out of Damascus, when we were wiped from all the driving, and learning that all progress is progress. About the miles, but more about the smiles, and even more about growth. Stick to the program all the time and trying to take care of this body that I'm supposed to treat like a temple, accordin to that great apostle. Whew. What an entry. Love to my family! SO ITCHY!