Standing in the Rain

It has been a wet and loud few days. After leaving Troutville we had a few days of nice weather and were then slammed by 2 days of thunderstorms. The mist at night dampens your dry clothes and sleeping bag. The rain completely soaks through your rain gear in 10 minutes of a determined downpour and the thunder and lightening is so close it defies the 1 Mississippi a mile system. One does not hike in the rain, one trudges. 

Hikers spend a fair amount of time fantasizing about what they'll do once their dry. For me it was just a hot cup of tea in a room with 4 walls. Our trip out of the rain was pretty rough. We had called ahead to the hostel we were staying at and arranged a ride the day before. After waiting an hour and 15 minutes in the rain and thunder we had to walk down a mountain highway to a remote house to call the hostel and ask what happened. Turns out they forgot us...in the rain. 

The hostel (which shall remain unnamed) was also rough stuff: it was a small apartment with no beds and lots of hikers. We did get free breakfast in the morning which brought its own brand of disappointments including frozen butter and a fly-filled hot chocolate. 

We decided to zero here and dodge the last day if this storm before setting out to Waynesboro. Garfunkel, White Flash and I went to nearby Lexington (we're in Buena vista) and saw Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson's graves. We also stuffed ourselves on donuts, fried mushrooms, and blackberry milkshakes at Pure Eats. We've spent the rest of the day doing normal zero day stuff: charging electronics, eating chicken,  airing things out, washing, drying, gorging on grapes, and generally not walking up mountains. 

There is nothing else noteworthy, the views have been obscured by the rain. I did buy a new pair of shoes, Keen H2 sandals. I've met a few people hiking in them and they swear by them. I decided on them with summer and rocky Pennsylvania in our near future. Unlike Garfunkel, I'm not inferring my New Balance in a garbage can outside a grocery store. I'm taking my shoes for a few days in case the sandals turn out to be steel sandpaper clogs. 

Also, we spent one night sharing a shelter with a nesting phoebe and her chicks. Momma was pretty upset but managed to poop on the shelter floor and not us.