Ole Virginny

We are 856 miles in.            Stopping here in Waynesboro, VA to eat some mega Chinese Buffet, grab a few supplies and hang out with the trail crew in the park down by the river.  Waynesboro is a hiker-friendly town.  By that I mean that the YMCA offers free showers and tenting, there is an outhouse by the picnic area, there are no signs saying that we can't consume beer in the park, the Chinese Buffet is under $10 and off the chains, and there is a list of phone numbers of local people (trail angels) that are willing to pick up hikers from the trailhead and help you around town.  A gentleman named Walter, who has hiked a fair bit of the AT, sections of the Continental Divide Trail, and thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, was having lunch at the same cafe as us today and offered to drive Butch and I to Wal-mart to pick up a few things.  He brought us back and dropped us at a Barber shop where Butch continues to live up to her name. 

 It has been warm lately and her hair was starting to 'fro' out a bit, so she trimmed it back, # 2 guard on the clipper, to keep cool.  We have been taking advantage of every stream and river crossing.  A quick dip in some cool mountain water and the trail seems less tiresome.  We had been hearing down south that Virginia was easy.  Flat. Boring at times. Lies.  It has continued to be up and down.  Big ups and big downs.  They call the feelings hikers get here the "Virginia Blues", and it knocks lots of people off the trail.  It is just that we go diagonally through the entire state for more than 500 miles that makes it seem never-ending.  The shoes wear out, wallet wears thin and yet the trail goes on.  A number of trail friends have run out of money or energy and reluctantly headed home.  Some have banded together and with the use of cars, have taken turns shuttling each other up the trail so that they can hike sections without carrying a pack.  This is called Slack-packing.   

It is sort of a way of cheating, but truly you are still hiking the trail. It does allow for more miles in a day and so some do it.  We haven't.  We are sort of  'purists' in that we are hiking it all and carrying all of our stuff. The next semi-cheating way up the trail is called Aqua-blazing.  We follow white blazes on the trees all the way up the trail. Side trails are marked with blue blazes, other trails are yellow blazes, guys following girls up the trail are said to be pink blazing, and when you and a bunch of friends load up a canoe with beer and meat and float past a hundred or so miles of trail you are then Aqua-blazing.  As fun as it sounds, we are gonna walk.

A river trip is a whole other trip for another time and we are looking forward to Shenandoah! The other morning we came down from a nice shelter on a mountain called The Priest. It was about 3000 ft down to a river in about 3 miles. Not a bad way to start your day. The trail then goes back up at about the same angle. It just so happened that there was a sign at the foot bridge that stated in sharpie on cardboard that there was a hiker feed to the right. A guy named Milo and a girl named Yinz had thru-hiked last year and were down by the river with a grill and a cooler. They were frying up eggs and handing out pulled pork sandwiches with coleslaw, cucumber-tomato salad, cookies and locally brewed pale-ale in cans! We partook of their generosity and then took a dip in the river. Milo said that since he finished the trail all he has wanted to do is provide "trail magic". It magically made our morning better and sent us up the hill with our bellies full and our heads buzzing. Again, the fun is the people you meet out here that make the trip worthwhile. No doubt there will be a sense of accomplishment when we reach Mt. Katahdin. We will have challenged our bodies and tested our determination, but the things we will remember most fondly are the folks we meet out here. We have been trying to take more photos of people. So many panoramas fill the camera and don't show the humor or characters we come across. I was blogging at the library today when the internet there went totally down. Next time i'll put up some pics of our crazy trail crew! Keep watching. Happy trails