Back to our regularly scheduled program

It's been a few days since I've blogged, so bare with me. I have to refresh my memory a bit, and squeeze a lot in.
Saturday morning we awoke to the same lack of power that we passed out to. Using my phone I found out how bad the storm had been, with something like 1.5 million residences still without power. I wandered up to my parents room to find them packing up. Vince had made some calls and found that the Days Inn still had electricity, so we were switching hotels. We also had to do a little laundry and find a restaurant with power before heading up into the mountains. This was all accomplished before noon, when Mr. F, Bonecrusher (my moms trail name), and I found ourselves setting foot on the path.
The trail was quite rocky, and took its toll on Bonecrusher's knee (somewhat apt). We stopped for lunch at a hut where we met a couple of section hikers and a ridge runner. Conversation was light and entertaining, and we enjoyed a prolonged break.
By around the 7 mile point it was starting to get quite hot out again. Between the heat and her knee, Bonecrusher was starting to feel what a full day on the trail can do to you. With that in mind, we ended the hike a little early, and were picked up by Vince to check into the hotel and grab some much needed dinner. After dinner we watched (500) Days of Summer, which made me happy as always.
The following day had us hiking 10 short miles, which Bonecrusher decided to abstain from. She joined me for a quick mile hike that I had to make up in the beginning, and then joined Vince to visit the Luray caverns. She was afraid of slowing us down, but really she made the right call because of the brutal rocky downhill that ended the hike. Even though it was a short day, in much milder weather, I finished beat and weary. Worse than that though, my stomach bothered me the entire hike. They met us at the end with cold sodas and cookies, which was about the greatest thing ever, and we went out to a glorious dinner with live music. Then, back at the hotel room, we watched Lost in Translation to everyone's enjoyment.
The following morning brought with it the main event to my weakening stomach. I've never been one to have problems with diarrhea, but it seems that it was time for me to learn its dark ways. I had issues when I woke, and then again after breakfast, and yet again at the point where my parents were dropping us off. Speaking of the drop off, we had to be shuttled about 8 miles past where we had last gotten off of the trail, thanks to closures due to the fire. It just kept raging all this time, and we even got to see helicopters ferrying water to and fro. At a couple points they even landed in our hotel parking lot, possibly for shift changes. But back to my own misadventures.
I told Mr. Fantastic to hike on, as he had a schedule to keep, and I waited for a little while with the rents to see how things panned out. Things were only getting worse, so we decided to give it the night and see what happened.
We moved from the Luray Days Inn, ahead to the Front Royal Holiday Inn. This was a step down in price, and a massive step up in quality. Taking a 3 hour nap that afternoon didn't do much to help me, though my bowels had at least slowed their constant evacuation. Regardless of stomach ills, I was starving, so we all went out to dinner. The place was small and cute, with a charismatic waiter who was married to the chef. Everything was delicious, and when we were finally leaving they gave me a bag of food to see me on my way up the trail, as well as some beer. It made for a wonderful and fun night, despite my ails.
I awoke no better the following morning, so we decided it best to go to the local clinic to get checked out. They ran blood, urine, and stool samples, but thankfully came to the conclusion that I was good to hike once everything passed. I was to give it another day of rest, and come back if the problem hadn't subsided.
After the poking and prodding, we all had a quick lunch and decided to go watch the new Spider-Man reboot in 3D at the local theater. My parents thoroughly enjoyed it, and I thought it was clunky but a lot of fun.
This was my last night at the hotel, because if I wasn't better and hiking by morning I'd have to go home for a brief stint. We watched some of Final Destination 5, and I downloaded a boatload of entertainment for the trail.
By this morn I was finally back in the solid stool club, and happy to be a member. We ate breakfast downstairs at the Houlihans, and packed up our things. On the way back to the trail we decided to catch one more movie, swinging by to see how funny Ted might be. It was a good comedy, if not boring at parts, and made us all laugh heartily. It's good to see Seth MacFarlane testing the waters of the film industry.
Back out in the heat, we drove off toward Ashby Gap, where I'd pick up the trail once again. I've skipped ahead at this point, but once I reach Katahdyn I'll come back down to complete the missed section.
Reaching the gap, we found ourselves face to face with Mr. Fantastic and his brother Gizmo (JS having already been named by Mr. F). Timing was rather crazy, yet again. Vince shared some water and Gatorade with them before we all took off. We said our goodbyes to my parents, they snapped a couple of pictures, and we sweat our way back into the woods.
I had an especially short nearo at 3.6 miles, whereas Mr. F and Gizmo had already come 10. That was fine by me though, as 2 zero days and an illness can steal a bit of your trail legs.
The hike was quick, but very hot and humid. I soaked through my clothes at the first climb, even though the terrain was honestly rather easy today. Dinner was small for me, as I didn't work hard enough to earn the big hiker appetite I'm accustomed to. I quickly set up my tent with the new trekking poles Vince got me, and rolled out my new sleeping liner that my mom gave me. In heat like this I'm so grateful to have a new system that's easier to setup and doesn't cause me to sweat all night. I can finally welcome summer in at least one way!
Tomorrow I'll be back to hiking the big miles, and I'm sure it'll be a bit of a shock to the system. Then again when isn't it a shock to the system? There's still plenty to look forward to in the next few days though. We have tomorrow and Friday to hike before we make it to Harper's Ferry. This is, of course, the spiritual halfway point of the trek. Not only that, it's also where Mr. F and Gizmo's dad will pick us up to drive us to DC. Another couple of zeros, as well as birthday festivities for Mr. Fantastic will make our halfway point truly memorable. Plus once back at Harper's Ferry we get to tackle the half gallon challenge. More on that soon!

No Joy in Mudville

Waking up to bone dry water bottles is a downer. I got up and quickly got moving toward the spring that was about .6 up the trail. Mr. F had already started snacking, but I needed some water to help the food go down.
I was already dripping sweat by the time I found the spring, and the heat had started to give me a bit of a headache. The spring itself was more a stagnant pool than a flowing source, but it did have a little movement, so I stocked up. After a drawn out breakfast in the shade, I decided to keep moving. Mr. Fantastic still hadn't caught up though, which made me think he had either skipped this source or missed it.
By now the heat was getting rather brutal, dramatically slowing my pace as it caused my head to thrum with building momentum. I slogged along, sweat dripping from my elbows with each step, until I came to the halfway point. Hiking down to the shelter I finally came across Mr. Fantastic. He followed me back to the shelter and explained that he had stopped at a different crappy spring, just 20 feet before the one I found. Another long break was required for me to find any energy in this heat, and then we were off.
Had I not been planning to meet my parents today I would have stopped at that shelter, even with it's trickle of a water source. If you'd like to recreate the way I felt at this point, do jumping jacks in a sauna with a terrible hangover. Just keep doing that for about 5 hours.
The rest of the hike continued to be miserable, until about 1.5 miles away from our destination. We finally found a decent source of water, and took advantage. I soaked my Buff and wrapped it around my head, finally calming my pounding temples, and we each chugged a liter of water. Refreshed, and ready to face the final push, we kept on towards our meet destination.
The campground was the most welcome sight I could ever imagine. Mr. F collapsed on the ground, and I worked on explaining to Vince exactly where we were located. 15 minutes later we were inside the lodge, ordering dinner, and drinking the best tasting soda I've ever had. There was still no A/C, but in the shade we were cool. It was great to meet back up with my parents, and made it feel like I've been gone for no time at all. We found out it had been topping out over 100 degrees for the day, and that there was a forest fire raging further up the trail. Not having the energy to put too much thought into that just yet, we got in the car and headed for the Best Western.
The room was air conditioned, and we joyously showered and lounged. The Matrix was on, and we were exactly where we needed to be on such an insanely hot day. That's when the hail came.
The storm came on hard and fast, and we lost our precious power before we had a real chance to prepare. The loss of Internet was frustrating, but the loss of A/C was a little bit soul crushing. We wandered around the hotel room with head lamps on, doing our best impression of indoor camping, until we both finally passed out.
We plan to hike 8 miles with my mom tomorrow, but we'll see what the temperature does. It could be too brutal for any of us to be out climbing mountains.

Blackjack

I headed over to the camp store the moment I woke up this morning, still craving the soda that we were denied last night. We got in just 20 minutes after the store had closed. Mr. Fantastic was awake when I returned to camp, while the people who had arrived and setup at 5am were still asleep.. city folk.
The 7 miles to the next shelter sang their siren song, and after my breakfast I set out. More comfortable, level(ish) terrain lead me North. Mr. Fantastic caught up just before I finished the 7 miles, and we watched another episode of TRS in the shelter while having a rather large first lunch. I took longer than I had intended, but after an hour break I pushed on to do another 8 miles to the following shelter, already craving second lunch.
A goldilocks trio of bears crossed my path during this stretch of trail. This was made far more interesting by the fact that all 3 of them were hanging out up in the trees. First I came across 2, hiking along and hearing a violent clatter from far above me. I looked to my left to see what looked like a scene out of Planet of the Apes. The bears looked like big gorillas as they quickly and gracefully swung their way down a tree, as if it were a massive curvy firehouse pole. Thankfully they were doing what they do best: running away from me. Who could blame them, I do look pretty beastly at this point. It could also just be the smell. The second bear did the same about 2 miles further up the trail, but by then I was less impressed.
Our second lunch was just as big as the first, and included yet another TRS podcast, this one reviewing Brave. Relaxation was cut short, as we had 6 more miles to go before a mountaintop we planned to find a decent campsite on. There was no shelter, or hut as they're called in the Shenny's, where we needed one this time.
We found a small space beside the trail to call our own for the night, and setup camp before the sun set. Dinner was brief, as our water was pretty low by then. A challenge of camping without a water source nearby.
In the morning we'll break camp and hike to the next spring before enjoying breakfast. It's a shorter day, only about 15 miles, and then we'll meet up with my parents. There are so many plans in the next few days to keep our minds occupied, which is typically a challenge out here. Your body is always busy, but you mind just wanders free. Here's looking forward to all that tomorrow will bring, but most immediately, the sound of a running spring to slake our thirsts.

It's Always Sunny in Shenandoah

I slept in until 9am today, but truly needed it after my lack of sleep the night before. Not to mention that rough night hike. We got moving a little after 10am to travel 19.2 miles deeper into the Shenny's. First things first, we had to pick up some water at the spring, because it would be 13 miles before we came to another water source.
Loaded down with provisions, we walked across a rather rocky beginning to this theoretically easy stretch of trail. A couple miles out Mr. Fantastic stopped to use the little boys room, or tree, and I kept moving. I didn't see him again until the 13 mile water source at the shelter.
During my time alone the trail lost its rocks, and I was able to enjoy a leisurely hike across terrain that reminded me of the woods in Jersey. When I arrived at the shelter with the water, I came across Tiny Dancer and Pinball Wizard, both putting the finishing touches on a massive pile of food. They planned to do another 13 miles to the next shelter, a marathon day. Mr. F and I had the campsites in mind instead, not willing to put in that kind of time/distance quite yet.
Mr. Fantastic arrived, and we wished our fellow hikers luck in their travels. We, in the meantime, watched an episode of The Totally Rad Show and enjoyed a few snacks. Then, after finding the privy, we continued our 6.2 miles toward the campgrounds.
We talked about video games on the way, trying to figure out our top 5 games for each system starting with Nintendo. It was a challenging discussion, but kept us both entertained and engaged for most of our hike.
The campsite is massive, a giant maze of roads and plots that look like a bloated cancerous heart. Instead of finding thru-hikers, in a place like this you see people driving in. Mr. Fantastic called them "city folk", since anyone who carries a tote bag into our neck of the woods can't be one of us.
It's still nice to see people, always alleviating the fear of bears a bit. At the same time the national park areas of the trail are always the most littered with trash, and the most likely place to find a bear accustomed to people food. That's what you don't want. Let's all say it together now, if you pack it in, pack it out.
I'll share a story about Suds to finish today's post. A few weeks ago he was climbing up a mountain and found a pile of trash in the middle of the trail that someone had just lit on fire. They had set it ablaze, and quickly hiked away, leaving the fire to its own devices. Since Suds could still hear them he grabbed the pile of burning trash and ran after them. When he caught up he dropped it at their feet saying, "I think you dropped this". One of the guys shouted an impotent "Hey!" after him, but Suds had taken off up the trail as fast as he could, not wanting to get in a fight with a bunch of angry day-hikers. Thankfully he knew that they'd never be able to catch him, since he was in thru-hiker shape. Just another day for Suds, keeping the trail safe from pollution, forest fire, and assholes.