June 7 Mile 630

Today we got to do what's called a slack pack- beside food, every thru hiker's dream. Someone carries your pack, usually by car up the trail and you get to hike with just water and a few other items. Very comfortable. The owner of the hostel drove our packs to Pearisburg and we were to meet her at 2 PM at the Dairy Queen. Food! It was a 10 mile slack pack over pretty easy country. Cisco and I looked forward to a leisurely stroll. Unfortunately, we got off later than planned and we had to hike the fastest ever for us to make it in time. So the weight was lighter , but now all of a sudden we were on a schedule and had to dash. Hate that. Anyway, we power walked the 10 miles, I don't remember the landscape, luckily it was along a ridge and we had one brief vista to enjoy, briefly. Got to the road that took us down to thru hiker heaven less than a mile- the Dairy Queen and a grocery store! Ate a big hamburger and an ice cream cone , of course. Went to the Post Office, very close by. Our hiker friends Magnet and Rockstar had texted that they had sent us a gift to Pearisburg. And a perfect gift it was. We had told them that the wedding we were attending was in Jamaica. So they sent us two of the hiker freeze dried dinners of Jamaican BBQ chicken and rice plus two packs of chicken! A wonderful gift and luckily I went to the PO before the grocery store. Hope to see them again, but Magnet is far up the trail by now.
Anyway, went to the Food Lion to resupply-wanted to buy so much, but aware that we have to carry it on our backs and our packs can only hold so much. Bought enough for 6 days or about 90 miles to the next resupply town. It all took a lot longer than we planned, so we didn't leave Pearisburg until 5:00 and them had to hike the mile up the road to get back to the trail. The AT out of Pearisburg is very convaluted and took us forever it seemed. You hike across a bridge that goes over the New River. According to our guidebook it not new at all, but the second oldest river in the world, after the Nile, go figure. Then you have you hike by this huge smelly and very noisy Celanese plant where they make cigarette filters. It's s huge place and the filters are so small. But this Virginia. We had to hike up for about 3 hours, not getting to a campsite til 8:30. A very late time for us. We were convinced the hiker guide was wrong about the miles. It seemed to take us forever. And the sound of the Celanese Plant and the freight trains followed us all the way 5 miles ip to our campsite. When we arrived there were a bunch of other thru hikers there that we had met at the last hostel. A nice bunch. They had a huge fire going and it was very pleasant eating the fresh food we had brought up from town. Went to bed and we were exhausted. Then about 10:30 we heard all this commotion- other thru hikers arrived that knew the other folks. They sat down by the fire and began a big party! I found out later they had brought up copious amounts of alcohol and not the type you use for fuel. They carried on til after midnight, and us trying to sleep in our tents about 100 feet away. At this point I couldn't take it anymore and played the adult role, got up and basically told them it was after midnight and time to quiet down. It worked, I suppose I was a buzz kill. But I was not a happy camper. Drunks and blisters- I just can't seem to shake them. We will try to continue to avoid them.
Speaking of blisters, I bought Keen boots just prior to the hike. They have given me blisters almost every day out here. And now I have smushed toes on my right foot that really hurt. At the next town that has an outfitter, I am throwing these boots over the cliff and getting some new boots. Cisco's Keen boots are disintergrating on his feet as he hikes. So for us, Keen is not keen.



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