Out of Virginia

After the ordeal that was aqua blazing, we decided it would be best iF we booked it out of Virginia. The “Virginia blues” are a real thing. (But the southern half was great) though southern Virginia was beautiful, the latter portions weren’t all that glamorous. The rolling green hills and farmlands of southern Virginia were quaint and a good change of pace

from the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

I remember reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods when I was in high school and how he talked about the Shenandoah really inspired me. We were really looking forward to it but then were bitterly disappointed when we walked through it. The forest is so overgrown and suffocating. After 100 miles exploring it on foot we switched to 60 miles on boat. We were grateful for the new perspective the river gave us even if it tried to take all our gear with it. Now I understand that old Bill just needed to somehow fill some pages after only hiking 800 miles of the trail and fluffed it up with some hot air to sell to his readers

So we hightailed it out of there. The last section of the Virginia section is called ‘the roller coaster’. It is 20 miles of steep up and down. The kind of up and down that makes you miss the trekking poles you lost to the river. To|day we hiked our damp asses out of the last 8 miles of the roller coaster and then continued this soggy march for another 12 with some rain that arrived just to brighten our moods.

Though we were so excited to leave Virginia we then turned right back into it. For just at the border and down a highway there is a gas station that sells fried chicken, though you have to cross back into Virginia to get there. But iF there is anything a thru hiker would walk a mile down a busy road for, it’s junk food and soda.

When we made it to camp we all set up our tents and then immediately laid down. This is standard procedure for thru hikers. Everybody sets up and then lies down while groaning and making jokes across the campsite. Then we are asleep by 930.

But then we were up again at 1030 as some bug crawled from Lizzy’s sleeping bag to mine and then back to hers biting us again and again until finally it had its fill and fell asleep with us.

From the other side, 

Pan and Bell