April 4, 2018
Destination: Damascus, VA
Today’s Miles: 0
Start Location: Damascus, VA
Trip Miles: 470
Steve-O was in the bunk above me last night and rose early. I stayed in bed until about 7:45 and then jumped in the shower and went into the main house to have tea.
The plan was to meet up with Bear Meat and Clooney for breakfast. We had exchanged texts and they were going to be staying at Hikers Inn that night. I was excited about the reunion as it had been quite some time since I’d seen them.
Around 8:45 or so they came through the front door. They dropped their packs and after a bit of initial catch up chatting, we walked along the creeper trail over to Mojo’s for breakfast. There was a guy named Remmy from the bunkhouse, also from the Atlanta area, who joined us. We ate and enjoyed the luxury of Mojo’s and caught up on trail stories. The craziest story was of Clooney at Clingman’s Dome in the Smokies. She slipped on the ice and fell, but had her hands in the straps of her trekking poles so her arm kind of stayed stationary and she dislocated her shoulder. She then proceeded to reset it back in its socket herself on the trail. Hardcore! She’s an ER nurse so I guess fortunately she knew how to do that, but that’s pretty amazing. True grit! That made me feel much better about my heel blisters!
After breakfast I hung back at Mojo’s to chill out a bit and check up on a few things online. I ate a second cinnamon bun because, well, just because, and then headed back to the Inn. I also ran into Nomad at Mojo’s, who was heading out that day on the trail, and Rivers, who also was heading out. Seeing lots of familiar faces is kind of a fun byproduct of sitting around town for a few days.
When I got back to the Inn, Remmy had gifted us each a bag of Easter candy that his mom had sent. It was awesome! I ate the entire bag over the course of the afternoon. I went inside to have tea with the candy and who shows up at the door but Cole, now going by Captain Krispy! It was good to see him again. Everyone looks like they have lost weight, because we all have. I asked Cole about his trail name and it is a combination of his Krispy Kreme donut hat and his captain America attire, like his crocs. The name Captain Krispy cracks me up.
I later went back to the bunkhouse to read, but that turned into an afternoon nap. I napped and read and even watched a little Netflix over the WiFi. I ordered pizza and garlic bread for dinner from Pizza Plus. Traveler showed up at the bunkhouse too, so I caught up with him a bit on how his hike had been. He pulled a quad muscle at one point. It seems like some kind of injury had befallen most people.
I’m staying here tonight and plan to tomorrow as well. I may get out of here Friday but will wait and make that call then. My heels are healing, it is just taking a bit of time before they will be ready to be taped up and walked on. I may end up staying here the weekend. My main focus is just making sure I don’t leave before they are ready. I don’t want to put my hike at risk by leaving too soon.
I was grateful to be able to accept and embrace my situation today and to just enjoy “being.” I was also grateful to reunite with good people again. I suspect breakfast tomorrow will be fun and full of more stories.
Time to rest!
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