Miles today: 17.7
Total miles: 1665.9
Brrrr it’s cold again today. Worse than that, it’s windy. Since we aren’t going into town today anymore to resupply, we have a pretty easy 18 mile day. I felt bad for skipping town because I knew Delta really wanted his fast food. The road where we would hitch from to go into town is actually the road where there is a visitor center for Mount Rogers. The Visitor Center was open and in our guide book it said you can order pizza to the visitor center. I suggested that we get food delivered as a compromise–Delta could have his food fix (who am I kidding, I’d enjoy it too) but we’d still be able to put in a good amount of miles. Luckily, the ranger at the visitor center was super nice and let us come inside into the warm heated area to loiter while we decided what we wanted and placed our orders and waited for it.
Finally our subs and pastas arrived and we went outside to pay, etc. I was not looking forward to eating it outside in the about 40 degree weather, but at least it was warm food. Delta stepped inside for a second to get something and the ranger told him that we could eat inside! This was the best news I could’ve heard!! She allowed us to go into a back room with a table and chairs and eat our lunch there. As we walked through the room where we’d been loitering before, we distinctly smelled Febreeze. In fact, it smelled like she’d sprayed an entire bottle of it. Ugh, we were definitely super stinky. Once we get to Damascus, this will be our longest time without showering somewhere since the 100 mile wilderness in Maine–about 8 days. We were sure working up a nice ripe hiker scent.
We pigged out as usual and then still had 11 miles to hike after eating. I am sad to report that we did not all prevail over our food. Delta engaged in a battle with his food and lost, having to stop several times while hiking to…. dispose of his food. Luckily, I was able to prevail over my food and surprisingly wasn’t uncomfortable hiking after eating so much.
A mile or two before the shelter, I came across awesome trail magic from a local church. They’d set up a huge trunk with all kinds of snacks and supplies and a cooler of sodas. Even though I wasn’t really hungry at the moment, I loaded up on snacks and was super excited at all the unexpected surprises of the day–a warm place to sit in the middle of the day, hot delicious food for lunch, and now trail magic.
I got to the shelter and was getting worried when it grew dark and Delta still hadn’t shown up after an hour or so. Finally, he arrived and relayed the events of the day about his food mishaps to me. As he was telling me about it, a mouse dropped from the ceiling of the shelter and missed my head by an inch or two. Looking back, it’s funny because we paused for half a second as I scared the mouse away but instantly returned to our conversation as if that hadn’t just happened. Apparently, I’m that used to living amongst mice and in shelters. It was another freezing cold night. Definitely not getting used to these temperatures.