Date: 2013-05-30
To: Down to the Details
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Sunday, before our three hour hike, I had setup my two man tent in the backyard to make sure all was in order. The plan was to spend the night in it as a test run. The weather helped too with temps in the upper 40s and rain. My new down sleeping bag is the bomb! Tent - no leaks!!! Bandit AND Jackson joined me. Surprisingly Jackson was a very good boy for his first tenting experience. He slept on my pillow!!! Hmmm..... LOLOn Monday morning I woke to rain, so yard work and hiking weren't top on my list of fun things to do before the gang returned home from the holiday weekend. So I began the laborious task of going through all my gear in a very methodical manner. I fixed things that were worn, found things from my list that had gotten spaced out throughout the house, tested out my cooking stove, and made a pile of all the other devices I had to test run before I left. There sure wasn't much missing from the list, so I was happy.We then headed out mid-afternoon in the misty rain to do a four hour hike with that 23 lb pack. We started at Bald Bluff and again went south on the Ice Age Trail. First stop was an hour into the hike at Shelter #3. Of the entire four hours, we only ran into one person and he was just leaving the shelter. We only said "Hi" in passing. It was a good hike resulting in only a few hot spots on the back of my ankles. No major pain issues so it is now time to kick up that weight and shorten the duration once again. However, both Bandit's and my muscles were sore and after four days of hiking it was time to give our muscles some well deserved recovery time. So Tuesday and Wednesday were down days. We setup our Agility equipment in the yard and ran a Masters Level AKC course to make sure we were ready to handle the CPE Nationals.Wednesday, I also set out my solar cell phone battery charger in the sun to make sure it still worked. Today, after it was fully charged from yesterday, I recharged my tired iPhone to make sure the battery had been charged by yesterday's sun. All miscellaneous parts for this solar charger were rounded up and the test recharge worked perfect! Cross that off my list - check.During dinner on Wednesday evening, I pulled out my SteriPen and tested it in a glass of water to make sure I'd be able to properly treat my water. Rats! Batteries were dead. After dinner, I headed to the supermarket to do some much needed grocery shopping and pickup some of the items I'd be needing, like new SteriPen batteries. A test of the new batteries was successful. Cross that off my list - check!Multiple options for transport had been tossed around Monday and Tuesday. I needed a place to park my truck, get to the Mt. Roger's Visitor Center south of Marion, VA and then get picked up at Glasgow, VA and brought back to my truck. By road, these two end points were 135 miles apart making for quite the transport arrangements. All leads led to Don Raines out of Pearisburg, VA. After a nice talk, he gave me some options to consider. I tossed them around, called him back on Wednesday, and with great relief all transport has been successfully obtained. God Bless Don!Here tonight we are having severe weather so no hiking occurred tonight. Instead numerous personal loose ends were managed as there are many to do before leaving for an entire three-1/2 weeks, right!