Date: 2016-05-13
From: Damascus VA

To: Tent City
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Woke up at around 6:30 on Friday morning. No idea why I woke up so early but this is the routine now I guess in the woods. Last night tent city was alive. People were hooting and hollering. Not disrespectful but they were having a good time. At one point around 10:45 a group were dancing the wooded trail with loud music through the woods were we were tenting. Otter and I were like boy we are old. We got up to find coffee and debated on playing music and yelling for everyone to get up at 6:45 am. We figured we'd be lynched so we decided against it. We walked down shady street where tent city is to Main Street. A guy picked us up while we were walking and brought us to Exxon where we could buy coffee. We the headed back to the Ministry building to charge our phones and discovered they were giving out free coffee. The building also had free feet washing and massage, free haircuts and free showers across the street. The table in front of us had about 800 beanies made by the church ladies for the event. Again free to the hikers. I took one. About an hour later we walked back through the 8 vendors by tent city to sign up for the raffles. We dropped off and changed into cooler clothes and walked down to the town park where vendor row was. We stopped at almost every table, signed up for a bunch of raffles. You have to be present when they draw the raffles so I put each time in my phone. I met Badger who wrote Appalachian Trials and met AWOL who wrote the guidebook and the book AWOL on the Appalachian Trail. When I said I'm Storm he was like you've emailed me some corrections. I said yes I did and will continue to do so as I go north. He said thank you please do. After going through all the booths we and eating a hot dog and sweet tea we headed back to tent city. We went to the 1pm drawing for Gregory (didn't win) but I did get one of those bowls you snap together from them throwing into the crowd. We then walked across to the ministry building for coffee again and they gave us another hot dog and some Asian slaw which was really good. I was surprised as I usually don't like slaw. It was then about time to walk back to vendor row to be present for the raffle drawings. Nothing until we got to Kelty. I won trekking poles and Otter won dry storage cases. After all the sun and heat we went back and took our free showers. We then walked back to camp made a fire and vegged. We are food out of my food bag and I drank 2 beers. Our site was kind of at the cross roads so many many came over. I've hung with and met so many hikers. Luigi was feeling a little under the weather and I put her name in on a bunch of the raffles. With this being the 30th anniversary so many people here. Met many people who hiked 10, 20, 30 years ago. With social media it has helped past thru hikers keep in contact. Families are here who's parents Thru hiked. A couple tenting next to us are in their mid 60's. Last night was loud and crazy but everyone was so well behaved. Very respectful and keeping things in order. It's so nice to see the ENTIRE town pull together to do this for the hikers. Another wow moments