Waynesboro, VA; Mile 852.5

It has been a completely different hike since the last time we blogged. The leaves have come out and the scenery is all green now, we hiked faster than we haved ever hiked, and we had a whole new goal this week...catch up to our friends...which we have accomplished just today. We set a new personal record yesterday by hiking 29.5 miles! We are pretty impressed. We only hiked about 30 minutes in the dark...it was a lot of fun! We feel great though. I bought a new pair of boots in Blacksburg, so my feet are doing much better!!! My knees are swollen still, but hopefully they will start to go back to normal. Nick is planning to go back to boots in the next town. They are definitely better than shoes. We start the Shenandoah National Park tomorrow, which means we are getting close to finishing Virginia.
Q&A:
1. How do you keep things cool, like the cheese and margarine? We don't. We try to get cheese that doesn't really need refrigeration like swiss. The margarine seems to do okay...it gets kind of runny, but it just spreads easier that way.
2. How long did Nick's beard get while you were in South America? If you get bored you should look under the month of June in 2008 on the blog. The blog is called Machalilla National Park-Puerto Lòpez, Ecuador . You can see his beard there. Don't tell him I told you but he has trouble growing hair on the left side of his face. He kind of has a complex about it, so you should tell him how manly his beard looks.
3. How do we keep from getting the swine flu? We are just lucky!!

The Audie Murphy Monument. This is where we ditched the trail and went into Blacksburg with the plague. That is what people are calling it on the trail. Ended up two other hikers got the same thing...makes me wonder if it was something to do with the water. This monument was placed here in honor of the most decorated soldier in WWII I believe. He died somewhere around here. He was actually from Texas though; hence the flag below.
Not everyday we see the Texas flag on the trail.

Look at all the green. I can't believe all the leaves came out while we were sitting in the hotel room.

The dragon's tooth. It is hard to capture these rocks in a picture because they are so large, but we tried our best. We have to admit we were not as impressed with the rocks as we should have been. We had something else in mind since the name sounded so cool. They should have named these dragon scales or something.

Also we were disappointed in the trail. We were warned about how dangerous this trail was and how we had to climb down crazy ladders. One "know-it-all" even told us dogs usually don't make it through this section. We found all of this to be a little incorrect. There were two of these "ladders". I wouldn't even call them ladders. They are two rungs placed in the rock so people do not have to take such a big step up or down. Pretty lame.

The turtles came out with the leaves. We saw 5 of these turtles in one day.

The turtle's leg.

McAfee Knob. This was a pretty cool rock. Nick is standing on the edge pointing at something important...maybe the beautiful view.

Us standing on the edge of the knob. We do not know what the black thing is right beside me...maybe a bird.

Another cool rock balancing on the edge of the mountain and another rock. I must be crazy to stand underneath it.

This spot was called the Tinker Cliffs. I can't remember the story exactly, but soldiers that went AWOL hid up here during one of the wars and tinkered on things...seriously that is how these cliffs got their name.

When we were headed into Daleville we found this little dog. His name was Buggaboo, and he got away from his owner and decided to hike the trail. He made it 8 miles before we stumbled upon him. He had tags so we called his owner and they asked us to bring him back into town. He was a sweet dog. He even slept in the tent with us. Other than a few ticks and his snoring he was the perfect trail dog.

This picture was supposed to be a joke...Nick thought it looked like a volcano. We recently found out the real reason for this smoke. A legally blind hiker lost his way a few days earlier and ended up starting this fire so he would be rescued. He was found and I think everything was okay...except the 3 acres he burned.

The James River footbridge...the longest foot-use-only bridge on the AT.

Huge trees in the fog.

A deer standing in the fog.