After a week of long miles and short sleeps, I reached Waynesboro, VA, a rather sprawled out town. I had gotten there by 10 AM after having gotten up around 3:30. I had just 12 miles left, but wanted to get to Rock Fish Gap in time for the trail magic I had heard would be there thanks to a fellow hiker's parents. Trail magic is a term we use for the times when "trail angels" either do something as simple as leave a cooler with drinks and snacks at a trail head by a road or when they pull out all the stops and grill up burgers, hot dogs or chicken. I once walked into a parking lot where someone's parents were making pancakes, boiling water for hot chocolate, had hot ham. The trail angels are most often people who have hiked the Appalachian Trail before or are related to someone who is hiking or has hiked the trail before. So...I get there at 10 in time to enjoy Dunkin Donuts, coffee with cream and sugar, homemade cookies, water and bananas. There was also beer, but I've never liked beer.
In town, the 1st thing I did was go to the Y, find their lawn for tenting, set up my tent then went in to take a shower. Then, like all hikers, I made a bee line to the all you can eat Chinese buffet called Ming's Garden where I quickly scarfed down 2 full plates of food; one with proteins, the 2nd, desserts. A true hiker has at least two plates in which you cannot even make out that there is a plate there is such a mountain of food. I've met a Sir-Eats-A-Lot who swears he can demolish 6 such plates.
When I finally decide to do laundry, I'm at this point, essentially dead on my feet. All I had in my wallet were twenties and, yes, I was so far gone that I put a twenty dollar bill into the quarter machine and ended up with 80 quarters. When I buy the detergent and put everything into the wash and start it up, it starts spinning, but there's no water and I start to panic a little. Did I just pour soap on my clothes and start up a dryer instead? About 5 to 10 seconds go by and then the machine finally starts filling with water. This whole time, I'm about half a centimeter from falling into tears. I start calling random people on my phone to keep the breakdown at bay...just for a while longer. When I get back to the lawn of tents, I am offered a burger; the other hikers bought food to grill up. I, of course, said yes. Hikers never say no to food...we almost lose the ability to feel full while on the trail. Shortly after finishing, I climb into my tent and finally let go of the flood gates. I had been holding onto all the emotional pain of the illness, of the spat between me and my hiking partner just before he left, of having "failed" him in some way, all of this for a whole week and it was time to let it go.
My "zero day" (a day where we don't do any miles) in this particular town contained 8 miles thanks to how, as I mentioned before, sprawled out it was. The next town I reached after Waynesboro was Front Royal and there was another fabulous trial that occurred there. But I'll tell that another time.
By June 7th, I finally reached Harper's Ferry, the psychological halfway point. I timed it just right in more than one way. I got to zero for my birthday the following day and go to my brother's wedding 2 days later. As it happens though, I got there on a Tuesday, the one day of the week Dot Com worked at the ATC there. Somehow, we got to find out that we have a friend in common. She knows my middle school track coach because she and him used to be colleagues at the Maryland School for the Deaf. (He used to work there before teaching at my middle school.) Plus, as luck would have it, he has a place in Maine near the trail. I'll explain why this turns into an important detail later...but perhaps you can figure it out on your own.
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