May 31

Awesomely random

Great hiking this morning.  Made it 10 miles, into the James River Face Wilderness, to the James River footbridge.  This is the longest foot-travel-only bridge on the entire AT.  It crosses the James, about 20-25 feet above the river.  A bunch of locals and other hikers were there, jumping off of the bridge into the water.  I climbed over the railing and took my turn jumping off into the water below.  What a rush!  I landed in the water kind of funny, and I got a lot of water in my ears.  It threw off my balance and equilibrium for a bit, and I took my time crawling up the stairs back up to the bridge.  Jumped off again.  Much better that time.  We walked across the bridge and got to the parking area.  The rest of the crew needed to go in to town to resupply, and I went with them just for fun.  The thing was, Glasgow was 6 miles down the road, and there had been an accident a little way up, and VDOT had blocked off the entire highway for about a 5 mile stretch in both directions from the accident.  Translation:  we wouldn't be able to get a hitch, since there were no cars on the road.  Walking down the hot pavement sucked.  When I finally got to town, I was so thirsty.  I was getting a headache too from the water that was still stuck in my ears.  We ate at the diner in town.  There wasn't much to Glasgow.  I was still struggling with my ear issue, and Rainbow Eyes went over to the Dollar General to buy me a bottle of rubbing alcohol.  Pouring it in my ears helped a lot to get the water out and dry them out.  I started feeling better and I ended up going over to buy a few items at the Dollar General, including a 4-pack of toilet paper since I had just run out.  We all sat in a field across from the diner, in the shadow of this huge dinosaur, packing up our gear.  Weird.  It was getting late and we still had to get back to the trail, so we headed back out to the highway to try to hitch.  The road was open to traffic at that point.  We all split up to try to make getting a hitch easier.  I posted out with Hashbrown and Croc Hunter.  Soon enough, a pickup truck pulled up to the stop sign, and Hashbrown and I convinced the guy to give us a ride.  He even picked up Tink, Apache, and Rainbow Eyes, who had gone further down the highway.  Awesome!  By the time we got dropped off back at the James River Bridge, nightfall had come.  We were pumped from all the excitement from today, and decided to start night hiking.  We made it a couple miles to Johns Hollow shelter, and it started to rain.  The shelter sleeps six, and there were two hikers already there.  Apache put up his tarp and hammock, Tink tented behind the shelter.  Rainbow Eyes, Croc, Hashbrown, and I climbed into the shelter for the night.  At about 3:00 in the morning, I had to get out of bed to spray myself down with bug spray.  Rainbow Eyes was doing the same thing.  The mosquitoes were horrible.  We only did 10 miles today, but it was adventure packed.  Awesome day!

The town that time forgot - Glasgow, Va