Date: 2021-04-23
From: Rockfish Gap

To: Black rock Hut
Miles today: 20.8
Weather: clear sky

My shuttle driver DuBose picked me up at the hotel at 7:30...7:45...8:00...8:15...830 (he had forgotten and was horrified when I called him at 8:15. It¢s a free ride, I¢m going to get pissy? It¢s all good) to get me back to the trail at Rockfish Gap. When he gave me a ride here on Wednesday as I got in his truck he said ¢I don¢t want to know your name. I certainly don¢t want to know your trail name. I don¢t care where you are hiking or the troubles you have. I just want to know where you need to go, where you¢re from and what you do for work.  Here¢s my card.¢ This, is a Trail Angel.  He gives free rides to town, just no unnecessary conversation. While I waiting for my ride, the desk clerk badgered me into having a complementary ¢grab and go¢ bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. Hey, I¢m up for dangerous experiences, breakfast counts in my book. Took one bite and realized they left one word out of the description: congealed.  Made a beeline for the lobby restroom and spit it out in the wastebasket. Guy coming out of the stall must have thought ¢that bum is having a rough morning¢Other than that, it was a great two night stay in Waynesboro at the Residence Inn.  I watched Godfather¢s One and Two, caught up on my day by day picture and video album and I¢m ready to start walking - where it counts - once again. Got to the trailhead at 8:45 without a plan much more complicated than ¢move north¢. They have you fill out a permit about 1/4 mile in at a kiosky thing and they want to know how long you think it¢ll take to hike through the National Park. Heckfire, how am I suppose to know?  They should have some sort of table with pack weight on the ¢x¢ axis and body weight on the ¢y¢ axis that allows you to match the columns for a SWAG. I ended writing down 13 days, one short of the maximum time thru hikers are allowed to hike through the park. I¢m a go-getter. The hiking today was a bit meh. It was a hazy day without many views to be had. Lots of forest walking through trees without and leaves yet. I did stand underneath a cell tower on top of a rise at one point for about 10 minutes, basking in the radioactive glow of 5 bar heaven.I didn¢t meet a single northbound hiker on the trail today. Which has been the case on 5 of my days so far. I did come across a few SOBO¢s again out section hiking. Oh, and I also met another 4 or 5 foot snake crossing the trail as I came up a hill. Nearly stepped on this one. I use to really hate snakes, but after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was 14, I figured not being afraid of snakes was an easy way to get one over on a fictitious hero like Indiana Jones. I¢m the same way with Kryptonite. Suck it, Superman. I did make one big goof today. I forgot to check on water sources. It wasn¢t until I was about 12 miles into the day they I realized the last water source I passed was three miles behind me and the next was 9 miles ahead. Whoopsies. I had about half a liter left of the two I had exited with from the hotel. Big whoopsies. But as can happen the day came around. I got a text from my wife remarking that it looked like I had beautiful weather - I did, so I decided to enjoy it and turned around a mentally down kinda day. It was just the pick me up I needed at exactly the right time. Then three miles ahead at a road crossing I got my first Trail Magic of my AT hike: someone left a water cache at a road crossing. This awesome, nameless person obviously knows about this dry section, so they buy gallon jugs of water and keep them stocked for hikers they¢ll never meet. Just so, so cool. I ended up pushing into a camping area by a shelter (they have bear boxes and cables here to keep food away from the rascals) and doing my first 20 mile day. I think I had stupidly tempted fate by mentioning the big, steep climbs are behind me for now, but the ups and downs today were plentiful. My Garmin watch tells me I climbed the equivalent of 400 plus flights of stairs. >span class="s1">There is heavy rain in tomorrow¢s forecast. I may hike a short day and set up somewhere before it hits and while away the afternoon in my hammock. We shall see.And Happy Birthday to my son, Alex, who turned 25 today. Miss you, bud.