I awoke to a soaking wet world. Since I had so much damp gear crammed into my tent it turned my quarters into a musty steam room. I carefully extricated myself from my the condensation, and made my way to the port-a-potty. Like living in the lap of luxury!
Mr. Fantastic and I went to the fire station to enjoy a nice, albeit small, breakfast. After that it was off to the Mojoe coffee house to enjoy some A/C and wifi. I took full advantage of this fact by watching the latest Game of Thrones. Joyous. Plus I downloaded two audiobooks: The Singularity is Near (because I wasn't willing to carry the book, but still want to finish it), and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (at the behest of Mr. Fantastic).
Then we grabbed some pizza. It was very good yet again, and definitely helped fill the void.
After pizza, we wandered over to the gear shop to look around. Mr. Fantastic decided to try out a super lightweight sleeping pad. He's trying to cut down on some pack weight. The big three items that make up your gear are your backpack, your tent, and your sleeping situation. His pack is 2lbs heavier than mine, his tent 1lb, and his sleeping situation about 1.5lbs. It doesn't sound like much, but when you carry it up mountains everyday you really start to count ounces. He could go even lighter than me on all three, starting with this sleeping pad which is around 10 ounces lighter.
The rest of the day was a blur. It was insanely bright and hot out. I got a noticeable foot tan going just from walking around in flip flops today. It's strange to be out of the forest in that regard, no tree cover.
It was insanely social. I started back to the tent city (about a half mile away from the main drag of town), and kept having to stop to talk to people I knew. It's very fun to come into a town that you've never been to, but feel like you know everyone you pass. Even when I passed people I hadn't met we shared niceties, making the whole experience distinctly social and friendly. Of course there was a full gamut ranging from a car driving by in the middle of the night bellowing the statement "Get the F out of Damascus you dirty hippies!", to a woman handing me a bag of Fritos and a Coke saying "I hope you have a great hike!". To be fair, that was the only negative experience I've had at Damascus.
I saw so many people that I haven't seen for weeks, or have heard of but never met. We found Beast Mode, who actually arrived at Damascus in time and didn't need to hitch. I met Cyborg, whom our group talks about all the time as the guy they started with but could never keep up with. I guess every group has one or two of those. We didn't find everyone though, as no one knows where Waldo went.
I discovered that my tent had dried, as well as everything inside of it. The heat was so oppressive that I didn't even need to air anything out. Unfortunately I also discovered my solar charger acting up, but bought a new one (with a donation from my dad, thank you again!). Trail Days means big gear repair and sales, so I was able to get a much more functional charger (waterproof, double battery storage, 3x charging speed, lighter, low light charging, designed for my backpack), and gave my glitchy one to Stonechair. He's let me use his phone on occasion because he has signal, so it seemed appropriate. Hopefully it'll last him at least a couple of usages before it breaks down completely.
Once finished walking all around town I went back to tent city again, and more specifically to the newly christened Fort Hammjob (the tri-hammock, tented tarps construction I referred to yesterday). We hung out and drank before heading to a close by tent for free chili. While not as meaty as I prefer (ALL MEAT CHILI!), it was free and delicious. We relaxed in the circle of tents set out as a display while downing the chili, and then relaxed into a short food coma. Beast Mode and Lars also joined Mr. Fantastic, Tapeworm (whose name may be changing to Landfill, but for the same reason of how much he eats), and myself.
Back at Fort Hammjob we continued to drink and laugh, being joined by a few new faces to me: Brown Banana, Big Daddy Tickle, and a few others. As the sky started to turn dark the headlamps all came out. It never looked more like a tent city, with bright bulbs carving highways between the myriad of tents. Now as it gets closer to midnight the drumming has taken hold deeper in the woods. There's a beautiful spot people tented at by two fast rolling creeks, and the fires and music were always going to end up there. Even at the far end of the field it's all you can hear, making for a massive wooded party environment. It's all pretty crazy, but I'll join in more tomorrow. CVS should be here in a couple of hours, so we just plan to see him tomorrow as well. That'll be our big party day. Tonight is just a warm-up.
