June 21

1000

We were up at 730am.  Well, Rainbow Eyes woke us up then.  Even though we had a late night last night, we wanted to get an early start today.  One, to beat the heat, and two, to get to Harpers Ferry, WVa.  We had a few more bumps on the rollercoaster this morning.  The last third of it was much easier than what we had done yesterday.  We hit the sign that marked the WVa border.  This next section would skirt the Virginia/West Virginia state line for about 14 miles.  I have hiked 1000 miles to get here.  Awesome!  The opposite side of the sign (for southbounders) noted that the Tennessee border was 535 miles away.  Been in Virginia forever.  It was still hot and miserable.  By the early afternoon, we had only made it about 7 miles to the Blackburn AT Center.  This was a really cool place.  The caretaker there gave us freeze pops.  We ate lunch, filled up on water, and hit the trail again.  We were all dragging.  Except for Rainbow Eyes.  He had some sort of inner energy he had tapped in to.  It's probably since he's so close to home, and his partents are coming to Harpers to scoop us all up to take them to his house in WVa.  Extra motivation.  We really wanted to stop hiking, but the allure of showers, food, and rest was a huge draw for us as well.  But the body would not cooperate with the mind.  Tink, Apache, and I stopped short at Keys Gap, about 6 miles south of Harpers Ferry.  Rainbow Eyes hiked on in the evening heat to Harpers to meet his parents.  My feet are really messed up now.  I don't want to hike any more today.  The rest of us walked 0.3 miles to a restaurant.  I had a salad, gravy fries, and sweet tea.  Great snack.  Some other hikers we knew were there too.  In a couple of hours, Rainbow Eyes' parents pulled up in front of the restaurant and we all drove out to their house about an hour and a half away in WVa.  We had gotten in touch with Slims too, and he had hitched back to Harpers, so he was coming to the house with us too.  It was good to be back together again.  It was so good to get a shower to wash off the sticky, caked on layers of sweat.  Sitting in the air conditioning.  Watching TV.  This sure beats hiking.

Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia!