Date: 2006-04-01
From: VA Rte 50

To: Bears Den
Miles today: 13.5
Weather: scattered clouds

Friday, March 31, 2006Happy Birthday, PapaFarewell to Lisa, MacGuyver and Road Runner. Bacon and eggs at Cindy Dee¢s Restaurant.Hello to John at the ATC. Amoeba will work today filing and scrapbooking. John shows her the fridge. Volunteers at the ATC office get treated to free cold sodas. The fridge contains usual brands of soda, plus Amoeba's favorite, gingerale.There are 2 other volunteers working today, Russ and Phyllis, a married couple who met on a trail maintenance project. Their hiking days are now behind them but they have lots of stories and love to do volunteer work for the ATC every Friday. They take Amoeba to lunch at their favorite eating spot. Thank you, Russ and Phyllis.Back at ATC HQ who comes in but Trail Boss, Redwing and Hopeful! Amoeba had hoped to see Trail Boss. And what a treat to see Redwing and Hopeful again.Hello again to Laurie Potteiger. Hello to another volunteer, John Mc Canaan. John and his wife were married in Dahlgren Chapel.Such an impressive place the ATC. Everyone knowledgeable and friendly. So much hard work which they make look easy. John Fletcher knows everything.After 5 PM, Amoeba drives to Bear¢s Den. Wisconsin Dave is back home in Wisconsin but Queen Diva is there. She¢s everything everyone has said about her, and more. Just a dynamo. Open, giving, fun! She feeds Amoeba turkey, lettuce, peppers and a cup of rich Seville orange decaf, loaded the way Amoeba likes it with cream and sugar. Queen Diva¢s friend Cheryl comes by. They talk for about 2 hours, trail stories and other stuff. Queen Diva loves Coach purses and Broadway shows. She¢s seen lots of Broadway shows. Amoeba feels as if she¢s known Queen Diva for years.Queen Diva needs someone to substitute for her during Trail Days. Amoeba volunteers. Mid-May, that'll be something new and different, inn-keeping!Saturday, April 1, 2006 Rte 50 to Bears Den 13.5 milesAmoeba offers to help out today with anything at Bears Den that needs doing, but a crew of young people has just been through, painting and doing other maintenance, so there really is nothing. Queen Diva has to run a few errands today to get ready for her trip to Indiana on Monday. Errands it would be harder to delegate than to do herself.So Amoeba decides she¢ll hike today. She drives her car along 601 to the Rte 50 trailhead parking. Along the way are multimillion-dollar mansions and then a chain link fence with barbed wire on the top and a sign saying Homeland Security. Queen Diva has warned Amoeba that finding the trailhead is difficult. The sign is tiny and the dirt road off 601 goes straight down. Amoeba finds it because there are 2 cars parked there which she can see from the road. As she's getting ready to start, a man pulls in. He's setting his car here. He and his hiking partner will drive to Rte 7 and hike back to here together. Start 9:15. Temps in the 60¢s, patchy sky, sun is hidden behind some clouds.After 2 warm sunny days all the wildflowers are out, some in big spreads. Bloodroot, cutleaf toothwort, spring beauties, veronica, dandelions (leaves only), garlic mustard, yellow violets.Lavender 6-petal flowers, whitish yellow corolla in the center, no visible leaves.10AM Side trail to Myron Glaser Cabin, walk by.Bright green skunk cabbage lookalike popped up all over the place by a stream.10:30 Beautiful stand on both sides of the trail of budded Virginia Bluebells, one cluster is out. Buds are pinky, purplish, bluish, the flowers are a clear mid-blue. Amoeba takes a picture, remembering 2004 when she and Spinner walked this same section of trail on April 10. Temperatures were in the 30¢s and it was rainy. They saw one stand of Virginia Bluebells and didn¢t take a picture because of the rain. Thought they¢d get a picture somewhere else, but never saw any more.Picture of tree acne, a strange-looking affliction on the bark of a tree.10:44 Rod Hollow Shelter. More 2004 memories. Walk by because Amoeba has told Queen Diva she¢ll be back about 3PM. Also she wants to get in as much walking as she can while it¢s not raining.10:55 North end of Fishers Hill Loop. She doesn¢t know if she¢s gone over any of the roller coaster yet, but she¢s not feeling the least winded or tired.Ambiguous juncture at the top of a little up. An arrow pointing to the right up the hill. She takes that trail, very well-travelled, maybe an ATV trail. No blazes. Return to the juncture and take the straight path. OK, there¢s a blaze.Inventing new words. Acute Traumatic "Accordiac" Arrest: cause of death of her late Honda Accord. "Taurosis": deterioration of Mountain Goat¢s Ford Taurus. Recently the Taurus has also been suffering from "Engina". Joe Keown, are you reading this?When she and her sisters were little kids, riding in the car, if they weren¢t singing or fighting, Amoeba sometimes would make up stories about The Trees. Trees chasing the car, throwing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, trying to catch them. She would invent words for those stories too.Sometimes it¢s hard for to tell the difference between a real word and an invented one. Take "regusted". The last time Amoeba played Scrabble, she argued if you have a verb of motion and that motion can be repeated, you can express the repetition by either saying ¢again¢ or by putting ¢re¢ in front of the verb. The wind gusted, then it regusted. Nope, said everyone else at the table.Amoeba thinks maybe "REGUSTED" will be the Element's trail name. See it often enough (as on a license plate), an invented word becomes real.Quite a few spring azure butterflies, maybe 10.A few fluorescent pink ribbons tied to trees by someone who perhaps feels the trail isn¢t adequately blazed. Hello to a man out section hiking. He¢s done about 700 miles of the AT. The man works in the printing business. He has 3 12-hour days on and 3 off, and then a week off at the end of each month, which allows him to do some backpacking. He started this backpacking trip at Harpers Ferry. Because the weather report is bad, he'll cut today's hike short, staying at Rod Hollow. He doesn¢t like to sleep in shelters that are close to road crossings or if they¢re mouse-infested. Tomorrow he¢ll meet 3 friends at Rte 50. 2 of them are just getting into hiking. They¢ll all go to Shenandoah where they¢ll hike in about 4 miles, stay at a shelter and then hike out 4 miles the next day. The third friend is his regular hiking buddy, a man who sweats so profusely he can¢t hike in the warm weather. Tomorrow¢s hike in the Shenandoahs will be the hiking buddy's last until fall.The man says he met a family out hiking, Mom, Dad and 2 young kids, hiking north, about 45 minutes ahead of Amoeba.A little past noon just after the summit of one of the roller coaster bumps, Amoeba meets the man who was at the parking lot this morning and his hiking buddy. They are tired. They say they¢ve hiked this section a few times but it never gets any easier. Sarvis, serviceberry, amelancher, 3 names for the same tree. Blooming.Amoeba hasn¢t had this much up and down recently and is feeling today's hike in the backs of her legs. She¢s not making the time she thought she would.Hello to the family of 4. They're out for the weekend. Redwing dropped them off. Last night they stayed at Rod Hollow. Today Sam Moore. The 2 children are maybe 8-11 years old, both carrying substantial packs. The Mom says to Amoeba, go on ahead. We¢re slow, we stop a lot.More rooting along the trail in the soft earth.Sign 4 miles to Bears Den.2:20 Sam Moore Shelter, read and sign register, leave at 2:35.Nice trail work along here, really nice log steps. Nice stone steps earlier.An uphill fall. Not hurt.Back at Bears Den by 4PM.Queen Diva and Amoeba clean the hostel. Then Queen Diva makes a delicious freshly grilled steak salad sprinkled with blue cheese. They drink decaf raspberry chocolate coffee laced with cream.They talk about plans for Amoeba to cover for Queen Diva at Bears Den during Trail Days. Amoeba will arrive on Monday May 15 (or earlier), Queen Diva will leave early Wednesday May 17 and will return the following Sunday afternoon.Bears Den Hostel is open 5PM to 9:30 AM, breakfast at 8. It'll be fun to think up breakfast menu items. Eggs Benedict?