Day 51: Roadtrip in style

Hiked 0.0 miles, camping in tent city in Damascus.

After sleeping for a grand total of at least 15 hours I woke up feeling not perfect but much better.  We are a sick group though, Dip'n'sip is just getting over a cold which he promptly gave to Why Not and she is now just starting her battle against that.  Srocket and I are gobbling down Vitamin C and water in the hopes that we can avoid getting a cold too.

We spent this morning relaxing at the hostel.  Given our unexpected zero yesterday it made more sense to get a shuttle from the hostel.  I splurged on one of the professional massages that they offer here.  You expect your legs to need it, but I didn't realize how knotted my shoulders had gotten from carrying a pack until Neville starting working on them.  It was a great decision and totally worth the money.

We had a short shuttle ride to the highway from Woods Hole from a guy named Don.  Most people that get involved in the hiking community are hikers themselves, but Don is just a retired guy that met a bunch of hikers and wanted to be a part of the community, so he runs a shuttle service in the Pearisburg area.

Dip'n'sip is neighbors with the gear reps for Princeton Tek who were coming down to trail days so he arranged for them to give us a ride back to Damascus.  So we hung out at Walmart to wait for them.  They showed up in a large RV and we rolled on into Trail Days in style.

Dip'n'sip guards the RV in the parking lot

Our accomodations for our trip back to Damascus

Tonight we are staying in tent city.  Dip'n'sip is hooking us up with lodging in a cottage off of the main park, but we do not have access until tomorrow.  So tonight we get the full experience.  There was a free dinner for hikers but there was limited seating and we got there too late, so we went back to the taco place.  It was mayhem.  They clearly had never dealt with even a small crowd and didn't know how to handle it.  They are going to have some serious problems this weekend, it is going to get a lot busier.  We ran into a ton of people we knew but ended up tenting and hanging out with amongst others: Scarecrow, Animal, Rocket, Avocado, Mowgli, Gravy, Twopack, Headstand, Goatman, Rooster, Candypants, Mooch and City Slicker. 

Tent City begins to fill in

Another part of Tent City

The festival doesn't really get into full swing until tomorrow but tent city is already bustling and people are enjoying themselves already.  I have never been in a place with thus many bearded people.  A lot of people had some solid bonfires going tonight and Twopack, Gravy and I especially spent a bunch of time wandering between fires and meeting people.  We even jokingly started evaluating the characteristics of each fire circle and rating them.

Through our travels I ran into Monk, Coach, Bluegrass and Twix and hung out at their tent site for a while where I ran into Shady, Starface, Guru and Twigs.  It was a very late night and everyone had a great time.