07/17/2016
Good times since the fourth! I am so very grateful for the hospitality of Littlefoot's family. I had a blast making a firework display out of a bunch of smaller ones. A blast. Get it?
When going back to the trail we had to decide between getting on near Roanoke and the beautiful McAfee k**b or going back to the town called Bland. The former meant skipping a hundred miles of the trail, the latter just didn't sound exciting. We chose the k**b. We know we're going to have a better experience making that kind of decision, even if it means reluctantly lowering the Thru Hiker banner to the ground and becoming LASHers (long-ass section hikers).
We had a glorious experience at the k**b, followed closely by a cliff walk along Tinker Cliffs. I am bad at taking pictures, and don't really have much of the cliffs. I took one panarama I'll add as an addedum.
A few days of hiking later, we got some unfortunate news from Spoonfoot. He was ahead of us in the Shenandoahs and had gotten bitten by a snake! We had been contemplating jumping up to the Shanendoahs to do an aquablaze and meet up with some friends (including Spoonfoot) anyways, so we got out at the next town and made our way to Harrisonburg where Spoonfoot was.
Spoonfoot was doing ok, but in no shape to hike or even float in a canoe for a few days. His mom came down from New York, and we spent time in Harrisonburg and then Waynesboro waiting to see how the the injury healed. In that time we took a great day hike where I had my first encounter with a rattlesnake. I haven't felt a rush of adrenaline like that in years and years, if ever. I feel very lucky to have only pi**ed it off a bit. I stepped right next to it and was assaulted by the unmistakable sound. I always thought the rattle would last a couple of seconds and be roughly the volume of a maraca. It was LOUD and LONG and we got the heck out of there! I am pretty sure I would have won a long jump contest with my leap away.
Unfortunately, Spoonfoot was not recovering very quickly, and he made the call to go with his mom back to NY and rest up at home before figuring out his next steps. That left Littlefoot and I with another decision. We'd been toying with a few plans already: a flip flop, a 'best-of' plan, or going completely off trail. We knew that we were just not feeling excited about just hiking from there, and we had an opportunity to go north with Spoonfoot's mom. Getting a ride to NY would put us in range of Boston so we could have a home base to plan the next phase of our adventure. We decided to take the ride, and we were on the way to New Rochelle for a night.
It would have been a waste to be so close to NYC and not go, especially since Littlefoot and I share a love of theater. So we went! We entered the lottery for Hamilton and lost, but we found 50% off tickets for Matilda and had a fantastic time in some of the best seats I've ever had. The guy playing Ms. Trunchbull was a riot. I was a very happy camper.
A bagel and some pizza later, I'm now en route to Boston. We'll be there a few days before heading out. I hope to see a bunch of you in that time and regale you with tales of pooping in the woods. Then after that we'll see where the journey leads...
