Date: 2008-06-04
From: Watauga Lake Shelter

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 39.5
Weather: scattered clouds

Well, I didn't actually hike 39.5 miles today, I'll explain later. I woke up this morning still with my leg in excruciating pain. I hobbled around camp doing the morning routine to see if my shin muscles might loosen up a bit. The path to the water source was rocky, so I told myself that if I walked there and back, and still hurt then I would get off the trail. After filtering some water, my shin was still in pain. As much as I really hate to do it, I'm going to have to get off the trail for a couple of days. If this shin were to get any worse, it would cause a stress fracture, and then I would be done for good. Luckily, there was a road 2 miles south that would get me to Hampton where hopefully I could get a shuttle from Sutton Brown, the hostel owner who we met last night at our lakeside barbeque dinner. So, I started my 2 mile trek back to the road. I was moving really slow and in extreme pain; there is no way I could have hiked on this for 2 more days to Damascus. On my way out, I passed Rewind getting on the trail after spending a night in Hampton. He will probably be catching up with Cornelius, Dr Z., Mule, and Tailgunner pretty soon. I got to the road about 10:30 and took about 15 minutes to finally get a hitch into town. I don't think Hampton is a very big hiker town, but I got a ride with a local hiker, Auto and his dog Raven. He was headed up to Kincora to visit Bob Peoples, a big local name on the AT. They dropped me off at Brown's grocery, but Sutton was nowhere to be found. I walked over to the hostel to see if he might be there, but no such luck. I left my pack there and walked down to the barbeque place that we had ordered from the night before. I had a monster of a barbeque bacon burger, with a big plate of fries, a Dr. Pepper, and a slice of cake. On my walk back to the hostel, I stopped at a mountain bike shop and talked to the owner who happens to work with Sutton doing local shuttles. He said he could take me to Damascus around 6 that afternoon. So I walked back to the hostel - which is a great stone building known as the Castle, that used to be an old office building for a lumber company. After the lumber company closed, Sutton's grandparents had converted it to a house, and now Sutton lives in one half and the other half is the hostel. Sutton was there when I got back, so we talked a while about the trail in the area. We both agreed that Pond Mountain was a pretty pointless, tiring climb that rewards hikers with views of the same trees and foliage that they saw at the bottom of the mountain. However, in winter there are supposedly some great views with no leaves to block out everything. For the afternoon I sat and finished my book, Everything is Illuminated - which was a great book by the way. I would highly recommend it, and also highly recommend the movie, which is one of my favorites. At 6, the mountain bike shop's owner's wife picked me up from the hostel and drove me to Damascus. It was a really pretty drive through the valleys between the mountains. We also went under a huge archway that was blasted right through the side of a mountain to relieve flooding. I wouldn't have seen that on the trail. I got into Damascus a little after seven and thanked her for the ride. From the looks of the town, I could probably have walked up to anyone and asked for directions to Casey Bledsoe's (Conductor) house. Luckily he had drawn me a map. It wasn't hard to find, and when I arrived he and Tori invited me in to have dinner with them. Conductor gave me some ice packs for my leg, and offered to drive me to a few places in town to look for a place to stay. We stopped at the Hiker's Inn, and Suzanne, the owner, said the bunkhouse was full, but she had nicer rooms inside the house for rent. She couldn't have been nicer to me. Because of my leg, she refused to let me do anything myself. I gave her all of my laundry to wash (she wouldn't let me do it myself) and then I took a shower. I came down to the front porch and she set up a chair for me to sit in and one to prop my leg in, as well as an ice pack and a cold Yuengling. You can't beat that service. There was a family from Ohio that were staying in the bunkhouse, and they sat on the front porch with us and talked into the night. They had been doing some section hiking north of Damascus on the AT, and were doing some biking the next day and then heading home. The parents were both nurses, and Suzanne was formerly a nurse, so they had plenty in common to talk about. Then Suzanne and I taught them all about the AT, life on the trail, the language, etc. We had a good time and sat out on the porch talking to almost 11. Then I went and got in bed and fell straight asleep.