Pearisburg, VA: Mile 625.9

Sorry that this blog took almost a week to finish. Technology has been the most annoying thing on the whole trip. We do not ask for it often, but when we do it is nice for it to be available. We have had terrible cell phone signal for the past 400 miles, and the libraries sometimes have extremely slow computers and kick me off before I can get the pics loaded. Oh well, it is all part of the experience.
Q&A:
1. What do you think you will do when you see a bear? Well, hopefully it is a nice, lazy bear, and I can take a quick picture. The books say if we see a bear we should back away slowly and give the bear a chance to leave before we continue. People on the trail say the bears usually run once they see a human. New Jersey has the most bears of anywhere on the trail. One hiker said they will actually follow you begging for food, but he says if we just yell and tell them to get they will run. The worst thing would be if we surprised a bear, or if we got between a mother and her cubs. A surprised bear seems to react by striking at what surprised him, and a mother can be very aggressive. I am not sure what we will do in these situations...cross that bridge if we come to it.
2. What do you eat? I will put a picture on the next blog of what we bought in Pearisburg. We eat a lot of pasta/rice type things. We dream of pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers, and ice cold drinks.
3. Why do you want to hitchhike instead of fly home? Nick likes to do things the exciting way. He thinks it will save money by hitchhiking, but really he just likes hitchhiking. He likes the challenge and meeting new people. I am fine with flying, but we will see what happens when we get to Maine.
4. What happens if you run out of money? We are trying to budget very well so that doesn't happen, but if it does we have extremely nice parents and I think they might lend us some money so we could at least finish. Many hikers do not have this option and have to quit the trail when they run out of money.
5. How did you know how much money you would need in order to do the hike? I researched this before and the general answer was around 3,000 dollars per person. Since the trail is free really all the spending is up to us. Do we stay in our tent outside of town, or do we spend $50 on a hotel room, do we eat a boring meal of cheap rice, or do we go out to eat when we are in town?...those type of choices lead to how much money we spend. I read one guy's blog and he hiked the trail 3 times. The first time he spent $3,000, but by the third time he only spent $1,000. We did start the trail with a plan to spend less than $20 a day, which would keep us definitely in budget, but I think we are actually spending $25 to $30 a day. We need to cut back a bit probably.
6. What do you do for fun? We really enjoy socializing with the other hikers, taking breaks and just laying in the grass, and dreaming about town day. The book I use that gives all the mileages also offers maps of the towns, so we get plan what we are going to eat before we get there. It is so much fun to think about all the things we are going to order and eat!!
7. Why do you call mountains bald? They are called balds because they generally are at the top of a mountain, and they have been cleared of all the trees...so they are bald just like a head. On some of the balds nobody knows why the trees have been cleared, the best guess is the Native Americans cleared these sections for easier hunting. On some of the other balds it was for grazing animals or farming. One mountian top was cleared for an FAA flight path tower.
8. How did you train for walking all the time on this trip?? The best way to train is to just hike. I had read people can hike around with a heavy pack, or walk on the treadmill at the steepest incline, but I think the best way is just to start in Georgia and hike. In 2 weeks we were already in shape, and we didn't waste the time it would take to find a good sized hill in Kansas to practice getting in shape for mountains on.
9. Why didn't you bring your dogs on the trip?? I explain this a little below with the picture of Earl. Dogs are a liabilty. They will love the trip because they get to hang out with their owners, but it is really hard on their bodies. Here are some other reasons: if the dog gets sick how do you find a vet, it is harder to hitchhike with a dog, we wouldn't be able to stay in some hostels/hotels, ticks are very bad here so they could get lyme disease, the next section we have to do actually has ladders we climb up in the rock...how do we get our dog up that, some times water can be more than every 10 miles. On hot days that is a long distance for a dog to hike with no water. what if they get bit by a rattlesnake, it's tough on their paws and joints, and the cold weather is tough on them as well....those are just a few reasons.
10. Did Nick (Beast) bring a razor on the trip?? No Beast did not bring a razor. He likes to shave before a trip and then see how long it gets by the end. He says he doesn't like to shave.
Hi Ms. Juenemann's class!! I am glad you guys are following the blog!! That is so funny that you picked Daisy as a trailname...my dog's name is Daisy. I am starting to think I will just stick with Sara. I waited too long to take a trailname, so it seems really hard to change it now.
This is a really neat bridge on the Virginia Creeper Trail. The trail follows an old train bed. It is right out of Damascus, runs 35 miles, and people in the area use it a lot, generally for biking.
On top of Virginia!! We are on top of Mt. Rogers, the tallest point in VA at 5,729ft.

In the area around Mt. Rogers they had these wild ponies. No, they are not very wild. Nobody seems to know the story about why they are up here, but they do have a sale at the end of the year and adopt them out. They are little brats because they have learned people will feed them. When Nick got the camera out of the zip lock bag one pony started walking towards him thinking the bag had food in it. When she figured out there was no food she tried to bite Nick.
This pony reminded me of Fabio from the romance novels with his long, flowing hair.

A cottontail.

A bus like the one in the book "Into the Wild."

Somebody did actually live in this bus at one time.

This old farmhouse is from 1890, and is part of the Settler's Musuem now. We didn't get to go inside, but it was nice looking around at the root cellar, wash house, and all the other little houses they had. Nick was digging through the trash in front of the house and found a little .22 pistol in the trash. It was missing the firing pin, but that was kind of weird.

A beautiful valley we just walked through. It is all private land and cow pastures, so we were expected to stay right on the trail. Our voices echoed really well here for some reason.

We said good-bye to our boots by Marion, VA. Nick's boots were starting to hurt his feet so bad he wouldn't even wear them. He just hiked in his sandals. Plus his soles were falling apart. My boots had a lot of miles left, but for some reason the balls of my feet felt like they were getting torn off when I went uphill. It was a really great story how we acquired new shoes. We hitched into Marion, and discovered they did not have a good shoe store there. We were sitting at McDonalds, and Nick was talking to his dad on the phone about our shoe ordeal. This lady overheard and offered us a ride to Abingdon, which was 45 minutes away, to buy shoes and then take us back to the trail!!! We could not believe our luck!!!

Nick's new shoes. We decided to go with a shoe because they are lighter, and we didn't have many boot options anyways. Both of our feet were half a size larger! Most people I have talked to say their feet grow a size and a half by the end of the trip, and do not go back.

My new shoes. I really like these, but my arches and heals have been sore from the lack of support, and just this week my knees have started to swell so much I can't even squat. So I do not know if this is caused by the shoes or not.

The view from Chestnut Knob Shelter.

It was a warm day and we were feeling lazy, so we decided to cut the day short when we saw this cute island with a fire pit and nice, cool stream. This is our bridge we built so we wouldn't have to cross the freezing cold water in the morning.

I think hikers will try anything. This is Rachel eating a lemonade, peanut butter mustard, and honey combination.

Justin and Rachel's dog, Earl. He is such a funny dog. His personality reminds me a lot of my old dog Bubba. He carries his own pack with his dogfood/water dish and his food in it. He loves hiking, but he is starting to get too hot when the days get in the 70's. Justin is planning on sending him home when his mom can come and pick Earl up. This lifestyle is just too hard on a dog...he gets up sore, he is losing weight, and just this week he got an infection in his foot.

The mountains of Virginia.

The view of the valley right before we started working our way down to Pearisburg. We are standing by a powerline. It is kind of sad to see the trees they clear to build the powerlines. You can follow the line as far as you can see.