June 2 Mile 566 ( I think)

Today was a better knee day. No big pains and all went well. Got off before 8AM and hiked through the muck of the rainy day before. Today was a very tough hiking day - more like Tn or NC. Lots of straight ups - had to climb over 2000 ft plus some other difficult mountains - hard climbing. But no rain. We did about 14 miles, we think. We've been in Virginia for 100 miles now and yesterday passed the one quarter mileage on the whole hike.
We stopped to camp on a ridge line and are not really sure where we are related to the guidebook. Water is very difficult to find in the ridges of Va. So we had to carry water for a couple of miles- 8 lbs of it- to make sure we had enough for dinner and breakfast.
Down below us is an area called Burkes Garden- no relation. Supposedly, Vanderbilt came to look at this area to build his big house, but decided on Ashville instead for the Biltmore House. While we are on the ridge overlooking the area, we have no views due to all the trees. Maybe tomorrow we will have a view. We stay on this ridge for many miles. Maybe we will have a respite from all the ups and downs. We can only hope. Great dinner again- brought bagged salad and olive oil and gravy and stuffing and chicken. Yum!