Day 49 - 54

6 May, Day 49, 10.2 miles, The Hike Inn, Damascus VA at AT mm 466.9. It has reached a point that it is exciting when I wake up and know I am heading into a town. :) it's also nice that a 10.2 mile day is an "easy" day. Today was one of those days. We tend to walk down out of the mountains into a town which makes it an easy hike. Add the fact that we are out of food the pack is much lighter...for both myself and Mojo and Skye. So today without trying we were motoring. It was 6.5 miles to the state line and I covered that in two hours. Bear in mind I normally average 2-2.5 miles an hour. The last 3.7 miles we did in just under an hour so that was some good hiking. :). We found our way to The Hike Inn which was really great. Lee and Paul are very nice and could not have been more accommodating. We got settled and headed for lunch and ice-cream...check. When you do not have a spoon i recommend the 4 pack of heath klondike bars...very tasty :) The rest of the afternoon was just relaxing and getting our town chores done. We headed to the one bar/restaurant in town and had a great evening. Our friend Atlas, the one who has been carrying a guitar and keeping us entertained the whole hike, was allowed to play a few hours at the bar so he made a few bucks in tips. The bar closed at 1030 so i was in bed by 1100...a good day indeed. 7 May, Day 50, 9.4 miles, Saunders Shelter at AT mm 476.3. Yesterday I mentioned how great it feels to head into town...light pack, etc. It always feels good though to leave town and to get back on the trail, but its always with a full food supply and so far we always head uphill out of towns...an unfortunate combination. The cabin we were in had a brand new, calibrated scale so I know I walked out of town with a 55 pound pack. That seems to be my standard weight so I'm used to it. Its a heavy pack and i don't like it but I'm used to it. :)  The boys packs were 18 and 16 pounds. We did have a nice breakfast at a local coffee shop and puttered around town a bit doing some more chores before we left...All and all Damascus is a friendly, nice little town. We hit the trail around 12ish and immediately went uphill for 2 miles. :) I was ready for it so not a big deal. It was actually a nice hike as most of the day was walking near a beautiful creek/river. By the way, For those keeping track, I have lost 37 pounds...thats "2 Stone 10" for my UK family and 16.8 Kilos for my "everyone besides American" friends. I weigh 208 pounds (14 Stone 12, 94.34 kilos). I have not weighed this little since I was at Navigator School in 1988/89. My beer belly is pretty much gone (despite my best efforts in town) and if I were to shave I would probably look sickly. :). So the AT fitness program is in full swing...even with the Klondike bars. I told you it was a great diet. I'm not really sure how much more I can lose...i would not have thought i could lose 37 so it will be interesting to see what happens in the next month. 8 May, Day 51, 19.0 miles, campsite just past Thomas Knob Shelter at AT mm 495.3. My first 19 mile day...and I had to earn it. The shelter area we were in last night was really peaceful and great so slept in a bit this morning..0745am. It was starting to rain as we were packing up so I figured our good luck was about to run out...which it did.  But I had nothing better to do so we just started hiking in the rain. It was a pretty nice morning and we managed to squeeze in lunch at a shelter without to much rain. We then hit the bottom of Mt Rodgers and the rain hit. So the next 10 miles was pretty much up and wet. It actually worked out as I've decided walking uphill in the rain is better than walking uphill in the sun and heat. Plus since I am already wet I figure I might as well keep walking on the chance the sun will come out and dry me off before I get to camp. That has worked in the past...not so much today. The trail was muddy and rocky so we just plodded along through the puddles and rain. At some places the water was running down the trail...it was like we were walking up a stream. We arrived at the shelter we were going to stay but there were no good tent sights so we just walked a bit further. We are at the top of a fairly open mountain with the wind and rain beating down so we found a great little camping area hidden in the pines on the back side of the mountain so we are protected from the wind. Ill take a photo in the am if the wether cooperates. There are only 4 of us who have made it...we did not get here until 7pm so we guessed others made camp earlier. We had a slight break in the wether and tried to make a campfire but the rain came back so we all hoped into our tents. So here I lay in my sleeping bag with two very wet, tired, but very cute dogs laying their heads on my pillow and shoulder. So much for keeping the sleeping bag dry :)  When I was in Damascus I was 6 days behind my itinerary. Thanks to not talking a zero in town and today's big mileage I am now 4 days behind my itinerary. I think I may make up a few more days as Virginia's terrain is suppose to allow for some bigger mileage days. We shall see.    9 May, Day 52, 15.6 miles, Hurricane Mountain Shelter at AT mm 510.9. A big day for us today as we passed the 500 mile mark. :). It was actually at a shelter so we had lunch to mark the occasion. The day started pretty much the way it ended as far as the rain goes. We woke up to a break in rain so spent two hours getting a fire going and just as the water was hot enough for coffee the rain came back so back in the tent we went. We planed on doing 11ish miles today and it was getting late so I just accepted the fact that I would be wet and packed everything up and hit the trail at 1130am. We walked through an area called Grayson Highland Park which is beautiful open meadows on top of the mountains. There are cows and even feral ponies running wild. Well, between the rain and wind the visibility was pretty bad, then add to the mix Mojo and Skye, and I did not see much at all. Others saw loads of ponies. Cheeks even had one poking it's nose in her tent last night as she was cooking. Oh well, I would rather walk with my boys for 6 months than see a pony for a few minutes...I'll go to a petting soon when I get done. :). So it rained all day and we just got on with it. During lunch I saw in the shelter log that Atlas and Cheeks were ahead of us and trying to catch us...they had passed us when we were in our cool pine tree camp site and didn't realize it. So Star (Spirit Wolf), activated Spirit Wolf Speed and took off after them. As you can see by the milage we did, he did not catch them until after our planned stop. Thats ok though, less mileage to do tomorrow. We're at a great campsite with the water source right next to the campfire which is a nice change. We even managed to get an excellent fire going, cook our dinner and hang out a bit despite the rain showers so a good day and evening. The one downside is that with the bad weather and our extended miles, the wolf pack is spread apart. We will leave notes and I'm sure we will all be back together in a few days. Question for my Military Aviation friends...what low level training route flys over/near Mt Rodgers VA, near Grayson Highlands, between Damascus VA and Troutdale VA? During our campfire we had a couple 2 Ships and three four ships of fighters fly over. It was between 8pm and 9:30ish pm, Any of you guys flying tonight? At any rate, it was very cool. Could not see them but it was great to hear. Made me feel like I wasn't an old retired guy. :) 10 May, Day 53, 5.2 miles, Troutdale Baptist Church Hostel at AT mm 516.1. We woke to, dare i say, the sun. We knew we had a short day today as Rocket and I had to come into this town to pick up our mail drops. So we got the fire going again and enjoyed our coffee, breakfast and drying our stuff out before packing up. That worked out well because Trucker and Rocket, who had camped 3 miles back, walked into camp as we were still there. So at 1130 off we went and covered the 5.2 miles in an hour and a half...which is pretty good time. The town is 3 miles from the trail so we started walking. We went approx 20 minutes when a wonderful couple stopped and picked us all up and brought us to the church hostel. I had actually sent my mail drop to another hostel/store but that closed a few months ago so here we are. This place is great though. Two rooms with two bunks each and showers in the church. The sun was out in full force se we laid all of our stuff out to dry and enjoyed the afternoon. Rocket and I went to the post office and got our mail drops and Atlas and Trucker hitched a ride to the nearest place for food...a gas station that made sandwiches...4 miles away. This place is like the little town of Norway that Vicki and i live near...only without the General store and the "hustle and bustle"...catch that sarcasm? This is one quite town. :) Anyway, they were actually taken to the next gas station 14 miles away but were back within the hour regardless. :) So here we sat enjoying the day and our delicious gas station sandwiches when the nice couple who picked us up earlier came by with a crockpot full of homemade vegetable soup she had canned last fall, plus crackers and peanut butter for desert...awesome!! Thank you Trail Angles. As we were enjoying our dinner, Casanova showed up having gotten a ride form the pastors wife. That was the first time we had seen anyone from the church. I also need to mention that this very nice, well maintained and clean hostel is "donation only" and honor system...what a great way to live life. We will make a nice donation as this has just been the perfect place to relax after two long, wet days. Tomorrow the plan is to hike 14 (plus the 3 back to the trail) and go to a shelter where they will deliver pizza. Anything other than camp food is always a motivator so I'll let you know how the "shelter pizza" turns out. If its half as good as our gas station sandwich... We are in business. :) 11 May, Day 54, 14.5 miles, Partnership Shelter at AT mm 530.6. It got down to 31 degrees last night so it was nice being inside a great little cabin. A beautiful sunny day today so we made some coffee and enjoyed the morning on our little porch. I actually got two boxes of food here...one for the boys and one for me so, once again, myself and the boys packed out heavy. We left at 1000 and did not get a ride so walked the 2.8 miles along the road to the trail head. It was a great, sunny, standard hiking day so not much to report. We arrived at this very cool shelter and met up with a great group we have camped with before so lots of fun people. The pizza delivery was actually Pizza Hut so we all ordered pizza...which was awesome. Remember I mentioned the "hiker diet"? Well I just ate a medium, deep dish meat lovers pizza and a liter of Dr Pepper...and I do not feel bad about it! Don't judge me...it's hard out here man. :) so dinner was awesome but it doesn't help my pack weight as I still have 7 dinners I'm carrying around. Tomorrows plan is 15ish miles. We apparently pass a restaurant on the trail that sells 16oz burgers so I may gain back a pound or two of the 37 Ive lost. :)