The road to Damascus.

We have finally entered Virginia as Tyler mentioned and are staying in Damascus, another one of the towns the trail runs through. We are taking another zero as the massive storm moving across the US passes over us and we've already done out usual bout of laundry, showers, gorging, and shopping.

Before mentioning anything else, I should mention Tyler's road to Damascus conversion from Tyler to... Garfunkel. Yes, Tyler's trail name is now Garfunkel after almost becoming "nerd." A hiker we met the other night saw us hiking down into a shelter and said we looked like Simon and Garfunkel since Tyler has lately had incredibly poofy and curly Garfunkelesque hair. After a few lines of 'bridge over troubled waters' the name stuck. So we are now Earl Gray and Garfunkel.

In other news we've been incredibly blessed the past few days. Dave and Steph Schools, friends from college, met up with us at laurel fork shelter and brought pizza and thin mints! There is always the fear of reconnecting with old friends and finding things to talk about but the School's generosity blew that right out of the water. They've been doing great (ask Dave about his poems) and were eager to share what they've been given. Thanks again for the best trail magic so far Dave and Steph.

We also hit the jackpot at the post office yesterday. After hiking 18 miles into town in 5 hours (we really, really wanted a second lunch) and dropping our packs we had to lug some 8 packages back to the church hostel were staying at. Thanks to uncle bob, mom, dad, grandma Colby, the reeds, and both sets of Ewings. We were so inundated with food we only had to buy about 5 things in town. Uncle bob's package was probably the best as I've got a passion for salt water taffy and a thirst for anything that's not just water. Thanks for the tang and taffy uncle bob. Moms package was a close second, but if the message on the Reed's package is true than their next package will blow our minds and destroy the competition.

We've sunk into a good hiking rhythm after 36 days and the trail continues to defy the monotony some people are beginning to experience. We've been swimming twice since our last post, once at a waterfall and again at a flooded lake picnic area, both times with patch and his service dog Sophie: everybody's favorite hiker. Hiking with patch and Sophie makes me miss my families beloved yellow lab Leia, who hiked with us for years. Hiking with a dog is heavenly. You always have a companion, warm pillow, swimming buddy, and occasional pack mule.

As Tyler mentioned Tennessee has been excellent: astonishing gorges, blue lakes, and vivid green valleys. I've been looking into other methods of photo sharing as uploading to flikr has been an unmitigated disaster. We hope you enjoy what we an post.

The things in foil are smoked turkey legs a restaurant owner gave to us. The guys sitting down are father-son duo medicine man and kudo. Kudo, as Dave and Steph discovered, is a near perfect Phil Buzzeli clone. The first thing I said to him 200 miles ago in the NOC was asking if he was related to Phil. Also, for a while both our phones and cameras were dead, so despite hiking 10 feet from a dozen milk kine and over a flame-orange lizard we got no pictures.