Continued from my previous post.

The Kindness Of A Wonderful Stranger

Early on in my Appalachian Trail thru-hike, I received a message online from a stranger. This stranger said he’d been reading and enjoying my blog.

His name was David and he lives near the trail in Roanoke, Virginia. He kindly offered to come pick me up on the trail, help me with a resupply and allow me to sleep in his guest bedroom for the night. I was floored by his generosity and accepted the offer.

When I got closer to Roanoke, we arranged to meet on the trail near Blackhorse Gap.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this encounter. He was being very kind, but he also was a stranger. Immediately after meeting him, I felt a lot more comfortable. He was an extremely personable guy, and we spoke about my hike, our respective upbringings and careers. He has children that attended the University of Missouri, my alma mater, and he lived in Dallas, Texas, my hometown, for many years in the same neighborhood I grew up in.

He kindly took me into downtown Roanoke where I purchased some new shoes as my current ones were worn out. Roanoke was a lovely city.

Then we went to his home where we enjoyed some beers and chatted a bit more. His wife Patti joined us and she was also extremely kind and friendly. They were kind enough to turn on the Dallas Mavericks basketball game for me (my favorite team made quite a playoff run.).

That night, they kindly cooked me a steak dinner. They were just too good to me! It was delicious. During dinner, I learned that they moved to Roanoke recently and figured this was a good way for them to meet interesting people and do something nice for others. I’m the second person they’ve done it for. They hope to host more hikers in the future.

Staying at their home, I had maybe the most relaxing day I had my entire thru-hike thus far. It was super nice and I’m extremely grateful for them.

David and Patti were too kind to me! Here’s a photo of us enjoying a meal together.

The next day, in the morning, David drove me to the grocery store so I could resupply on food and then he brought me to the trail. We’ve kept in touch since and I’ve sent updates from the trail.

Blistering Heat Along The Blue Ridge Parkway

When I returned to the trail, I’d hoped to reconnect with KitKat, Old Man, Local, Sonic, Canada Dry and Chappy. Unfortunately, they had fallen behind quite a bit, so I pushed on.

That stretch of the trail ran alongside the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic road through Virginia. And when I went through it, it was toasty! That week the temperature got up to the 90s. It was steaming hot.

This was a big departure from before when the cold was the larger challenge I was dealing with. Some day-hikers and locals I chatted with told me it was unusual for it to be that hot this early in the season (late April-early May).

The first day of this really hot week, I heard that a really nice swimming hole—Jennings Creek—was coming up. It felt like perfect timing. And then when I got there, I met Fresh Grounds.

Fresh Grounds is a trail angel that has become famous on the Appalachian Trail. He has a nonprofit that accepts donations, and he uses those donations to buy lots and lots of food that he gives out to hikers. He spends the entire hiking season driving along the trail in his van—Fresh Grounds’ Leap Frog Cafe—to meet hikers.

I decided to cut my day short that day to enjoy the swimming and the Leap Frog Cafe. A bunch of other hikers did the same, so it was fun to be around so many other hikers.

Fresh Grounds set up a movie for us to watch on his laptop, so we all watched The Water Boy, which was a lot of fun.

After that, I continued hiking through the warm weather and beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. At the end of that week, a big rainstorm finally cooled the weather down, but I decided to head into Waynesboro, Virginia to resupply and rest after a big week.

My First Zero

In Waynesboro, I decided to take a zero-mile rest day, known in hiker lingo as simply a “zero.”

This was my first zero, which many around me were shocked to learn. Most hikers had taken several zeroes already. However, the advice I was given was to take zeroes when you need them, and I didn’t really feel like I needed one until that day.

The night I got into Waynesboro, I met a few hikers for a burger and a beer in town, which was really nice, and I stayed at a Hostel called Stanimal’s 328. It was honestly one of my favorite hostels on the trail. I really loved it. The staff was very kind, there was a real fun crowd of hikers there and it was a good town to stop in.

While in town, I resupplied at a grocery store, got some fast food and mailed the last of my cold weather gear home.

I also enjoyed some beers with other hikers around a fire behind the hostel, read some of my book and just generally relaxed.

The second night I was there was Cinco De Mayo, so the hostel made a special Mexican food dinner which was delicious. That night, I met Pumba. We got to talking, and I learned that Pumba was moving to Chicago after he returns from the trail to attend law school. When I’m not hiking, I live in Chicago, and I love the city. So I told him how he’s gonna love the city and that we need to reconnect when we both get back. Pumba and I had some great conversation. Eventually, we decided that when we got back on trail we should hike together.

That night I also met Dingo, an Australian gal that was also hiking with Pumba. Dingo was hilarious and had a very dry sense of humor. She was a lot of fun to gab with.

The Shenny With A New Trail Fam

The next day, I got back on the trail and entered Shenandoah National Park. I loved the park. It was really beautiful with lots of greenery.

The first day I entered the park, I immediately loved the views and the sights. However, by the end of my hike, a storm had quickly rolled in and obscured my views. However, the next day, that rain was gone and the weather was great for the rest of my time in the park.

In the park, I started hiking with Pumba and Dingo as well as Grasshopper and Rex, two super fun older guys they’d been hiking with. We all had a blast hiking together. Grasshopper was from Connecticut and Rex was from Vermont.

One thing I, and other hikers I’d been hiking around, heard a lot about from other hikers leading up to Shenandoah was the waysides. The park has tons of trail side stores and restaraunts to stop at. For us hikers who haven’t had that opportunity much throughout the first half of the trail, this was music to our ears. Our group of hikers took full advantage.

We stopped for a midday snack and beer multiple days, and we ate at restaraunts inside the park’s lodges a couple times. It was super nice.

Inside the park, one thing that really stuck out was the deer. The deer in the park were not at all skittish. You could walk so close to them and they wouldn’t flinch.

Making Our Way Through The Rest Of The State

Once we got through the national park, we made our way to Mountain Home Bed and Breakfast. It’s a full Bed and Breakfast, but they also serve hikers in a bunkroom style setup.

That was near Front Royal, Virginia, a beautiful town. There we got dinner and beers at a local brewery at night and in the morning we went back into town so that Dingo and Rex could replace their worn out shoes. That took longer than expected because they were getting a new shipment of shoes that day so it wasn’t until like 2:30 p.m. when we got back on trail. I didn’t mind too much though. The town had a lovely downtown where there happened to be a parade going on, and it felt like a nice rest to spend the morning in Front Royal.

When we got back on trail, we didn’t get to the shelter until real late. At that shelter, we met a mother and her two children that were thru-hiking the trail. The children, two boys, were very young: five and eight years old. The mother told what it was like to bring such young children along for such a crazy long hike. Throughout this hike, I was shocked to hear how many people brought their young kids.

My fellow hikers and I at the 1000-mile marker of the Appalachian Trail. From left, that’s Pumba, me, Grasshopper, Dingo and Rex.

That day we hit the 1000-mile marker. It was an insane and surreal feeling to know you’ve walked 1000 miles. We brought beers to celebrate the occasion. However, I was the only one with the discipline not to drink it before we got to 1000 miles. We, of course, stopped there for photos and to soak in the moment.

The next day we decided to stay at a hostel run by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and a local trail club called Bear’s Den. And yes, we had just stayed a hostel two nights before. We were doing a little hostel hopping at this point. However, at Bear’s Den, we got a really cheap rate by going in together on a private room.

Enjoying a beer with a view!

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The hostel was super cozy, and it was right next to an awesome brewery called Bear Chase Brewing Company that overlooked the mountains. It was an awesome spot to eat and have a couple beers on our last night in Virginia.

The next day, May 13, we traversed the “roller coaster.” a section of the trail that is know for steep ascents and descents over and over again and entered West Virginia, finally completing the Virginia section of the trail.

I did have a good ride. Thank you very much.

(I apologize for the delay in these posts being published; I am writing way slower during my hike than I anticipated.)