Friday, I spent a few hours catching up on town chores. My phone didn't have reception, so I had to find "a guy's house" on the north end of town who has a phone out on his porch and lets hikers use it for free (donations accepted, of course). I got in touch with Christine and confirmed that she would pick me up some time Sat. evening. I visited the Dairy King and had some good breakfast and a creamsicle-flavor shake (waitress recommended it). I then went to the library and transcribed a couple weeks-worth of journal entries. After that, the rest of my day was free and I would have a chance to do some much-needed relaxing.
I met-up with Legend, Barley and Montana. We've all had similar paces over the past few days, so I've gotten to know them some, and enjoy their company. We went to dinner at a pizza place downtown and ordered some pitchers of beer. This whole trip, I've been carrying my temporary, paper GA drivers license while my real one slowly travels through the mail (ridiculous system in my opinion, BTW). The server didn't think anything of it, but his manager was a real stick-in-the-mud: "We got busted recently by the ABC [some sort of state alcohol agency in VA] for serving a minor with a fake ID. Your license is on paper - you can just print that on your printer. You don't even look 21." I know how old I am, but the interrogation had me sweating anyway - I don't deal well this this sort of thing. After a while, he cooled off, and another manager convinced him that I really was older than 21. I'm very glad he did, because it was my last night on the trail and I wanted to celebrate.
That night, I stayed at "The Place", which is a hostel run by one of the many churches in town. It was very bare-bones: the bunks didn't even have mattresses. I woke-up pretty early because the hard-wood floors made a lot of noise once the first hiker woke-up in the morning. I got breakfast at a coffee shop on the north end of town with Legend, Barley and Montana: coffee, toast and an omelette. If I were hiking out of town later that day, I would have considered a second or third course for breakfast, but since this was my last day, I decided I would try to keep the meals normal-sized and healthy-ish. My caloric needs are about to be cut in half, so I need to get used to not inhaling high-calorie food.
The rest of the day, I did pretty much nothing. I knew Christine would be in town around six, and all of my chores were done, so I had a lot of time on my hands. When you're on the trail, you don't do a whole lot of relaxing (unless you're doing easy, super-low-mileage hiking) - so, I felt pretty lazy just sitting around reading and listening to music.
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| From AT 2010 |
Christine showed-up a little early (about a six hr drive from ATL) and we went to Dairy King for dinner/desert. We spent the rest of the evening walking around town. We came across two small concerts: one Christian rock concert next to a playground and another, secular show on the other side of town next to a huge fire. Trail Days is the biggest hiker event along the trail and it will take place next weekend, but even now a lot of the accommodations are booked up. I tried to get a two-person room for Christine and I, but everything was taken. I knew she wouldn't like sleeping on a mattress-less bunk, so instead I told her to bring my two-person tent, and we would set it up on the grass next to the hostel.
The next day (Sunday), there were two things I wanted to do before heading back to GA: visit the grayson highlands state park (where the AT would travel through in another 40 miles) and provide some trail magic. Grayson highlands was originally my goal for this trip. I've heard some people say that it's one of the most scenic places on the trail, and it's also well known for having wild ponies which will come-up to hikers and lick the sweat off of their backpacks. When I talked to Christine and we decided to make Damascus my pick-up point, I insisted that we had to take a day trip to the park so I could see some of these curious ponies.
We went to grayson highlands and walked around for a few hours, following the AT for a bit and walking some side trails as well, but we were unable to find any ponies. It was definitely scenic and I got a chance to say goodbye to a couple hiker who had gotten ahead of me, but the lack of ponies was a small let-down.
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| From AT 2010 |
We left the park sometime after three and headed to Marion, VA - where Christine's GPS said we could find a Pizza Hut. A number of times on this trip, I have been the recipient of some pretty great trail magic. I wanted to take a shot at being a provider. We went to Pizza Hut and ordered a few pizzas and a couple orders of breadsticks. While we were waiting on those, I ran over to the grocery store across the street and picked up some beer, soda and candy. The original plan was to drive up to a trailhead that showed-up in my trail guide, but while we were driving there, we came across a hitchhiker and we pulled over to ask where he needed to go. It turns out that he was a hiker and was looking for a ride from the trail to Marion. I was confused: "Is the trail nearby? I thought the trail was 30 miles away from here." "No, there's actually a shelter 0.2 miles from here."
When I picked-up the pizza and drinks, I was planning on serving three or four people. Hikers usually hike their own pace and you can sometimes sit at a trailhead for a couple hours and not see anyone. So, I wasn't even sure we would find a hiker to share our food with. But, now, we had discovered a shelter - where there would most likely be a handful of hikers. So, we changed our plans and decided to dish out our pizza right there and then. A couple hikers ran back to the shelter to alert everyone else that trail magic was available. Within a minute or two, we had a crowd of maybe 20 people. It was pretty funny: waves of scruffy-looking, hungry hikers running to our cooler and pizza boxes. It had some of the feeling of a zombie movie where hungry-looking creatures will appear out of nowhere, but instead of brains, there were looking for free food. It was a good time. They were glad for the food, and we were glad to be providing it.
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