Trail Days, Damascus, Virginia
You know you're a thru-hiker when... You'll hitch a ride 150 miles in the wrong direction for the possibility of free gear.
We arrived safely at Trail Days to a free dinner and a dry tent site. Despite local liquor laws prohibiting the sale of spirits and the consumption of any alcoholic beverage, upon arrival we were invited to Jessie's tent. "BYO 'vessel,'" he said in his tennessee twang as he held up a full bottle of "Elmer T. Lee" bourbon. It's the "Passion Pop" of bourbons. We finally mannaged to pry ourselves away from the tent as it started pouring with rain and went to bed. About ten minutes later we began to hear the sound of bongo drums comming from the 'drum circle' by the river. It was quite rhythmic and southing to begin, but after the first half hour it began to feel like a tribal sacrifice was about to be made. They never stopped...
We awoke early and decided to see if we could find some free breakfast. As we emerged from our tent, we were plesantly surprised by three Australian flags flying next to our tent. It was the Three Sisters; Waltzing matilda, Vegimite on Toast and Bluey. We had met the three of them a few weeks before when we walked through Damascus and had hiked with them between Damascus and Pearisberg. About half way through the day we were back at our tent stashing away some of the free and cheap gear we had 'aquired' when we both heard another unmistakeable familar Australian accent, it was Kaptain Kangaroo. All together this year there are 8 Australians hiking the trail.
The Aussies
Every year at Trail Days there is a 'Hiker Parade' which is just an excuse for a huge water fight between hikers and the town. It seems that everyone else knew what was going to happen during the parade except us so we were a bit suprised when people started throwing water bombs at the local sheriff.
Hiker Parade
We have a saying, 'The trail always looks after you.' With this in mind we were not too worried about how we were going to get back to Pearisburg, but as Saturday was drawing to an end and a ride had still not materialised we decided to try a more direct approach. Another hiker eariler that day had jokingly suggested that we walk around town with a sign. Armed with some paper towel and a black permanent marker we made a sign, 'Thru-hiker looking for a ride to PEARISBERG' and stuck it to Zan's back with her earrings. We strategically walked through the crowded streets of Damscus, eventually we decided to go hang out in the outfitter. After ten minutes of Zan generally making a nusicance of herself to draw attention to the sign we made our way outside. About 5 meters down the street one of the people from the outfitters came running after us. "My name is Jose, I live near Pearisberg and i will be leaving in about an hour if you want a ride." We ran back to our tent site, packed up and headed back to the outfitters to wait.
On the ride home Jose told us that he was the local rep for Marmot, Jetboil and a few other equipment brands. He promised to load us up with free gear before he dropped us off and offered to get our broken tent pole fixed for us.
We arrived safely at Trail Days to a free dinner and a dry tent site. Despite local liquor laws prohibiting the sale of spirits and the consumption of any alcoholic beverage, upon arrival we were invited to Jessie's tent. "BYO 'vessel,'" he said in his tennessee twang as he held up a full bottle of "Elmer T. Lee" bourbon. It's the "Passion Pop" of bourbons. We finally mannaged to pry ourselves away from the tent as it started pouring with rain and went to bed. About ten minutes later we began to hear the sound of bongo drums comming from the 'drum circle' by the river. It was quite rhythmic and southing to begin, but after the first half hour it began to feel like a tribal sacrifice was about to be made. They never stopped...
We awoke early and decided to see if we could find some free breakfast. As we emerged from our tent, we were plesantly surprised by three Australian flags flying next to our tent. It was the Three Sisters; Waltzing matilda, Vegimite on Toast and Bluey. We had met the three of them a few weeks before when we walked through Damascus and had hiked with them between Damascus and Pearisberg. About half way through the day we were back at our tent stashing away some of the free and cheap gear we had 'aquired' when we both heard another unmistakeable familar Australian accent, it was Kaptain Kangaroo. All together this year there are 8 Australians hiking the trail.
The Aussies
Every year at Trail Days there is a 'Hiker Parade' which is just an excuse for a huge water fight between hikers and the town. It seems that everyone else knew what was going to happen during the parade except us so we were a bit suprised when people started throwing water bombs at the local sheriff.
Hiker Parade
We have a saying, 'The trail always looks after you.' With this in mind we were not too worried about how we were going to get back to Pearisburg, but as Saturday was drawing to an end and a ride had still not materialised we decided to try a more direct approach. Another hiker eariler that day had jokingly suggested that we walk around town with a sign. Armed with some paper towel and a black permanent marker we made a sign, 'Thru-hiker looking for a ride to PEARISBERG' and stuck it to Zan's back with her earrings. We strategically walked through the crowded streets of Damscus, eventually we decided to go hang out in the outfitter. After ten minutes of Zan generally making a nusicance of herself to draw attention to the sign we made our way outside. About 5 meters down the street one of the people from the outfitters came running after us. "My name is Jose, I live near Pearisberg and i will be leaving in about an hour if you want a ride." We ran back to our tent site, packed up and headed back to the outfitters to wait.
On the ride home Jose told us that he was the local rep for Marmot, Jetboil and a few other equipment brands. He promised to load us up with free gear before he dropped us off and offered to get our broken tent pole fixed for us.
posted by Mike & Zan :-) | 12:44 pm
1 Comments:
U HAVE BEEN BUSY! CONGRATULATIONS!IT SOUNDS LIKE U REALLY BURN UP THE CALORIES.
DO U HAVE NICKNAMES ON THE TRAIL? IF SO, WHAT R THEY?
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