Sunday, July 20th

It's been a great weekend in a luxurious DC townhouse stocking up calories. It was great to get to see the family, especially our little niece Reagan and the Boss dog. We head back to the trail this afternoon. It doesn't feel like we've had the last almost 72 hours off the trail. We even had a longer break than expected because Thursday while hiking we decided we didn't want to hike the next 30 miles to Waynesboro by the next afternoon to meet Andrew's parents. So, we went west at the next road crossing to a campground with cabins, rented one for the night, and called Andrew's parents and asked if they could pick us up there. It had been a long 12 days of averaging 20 miles a day with three resupplies. We didn't want to be completely exhausted when they picked us up. Today, we'll start back where we left off. We'll have 30 miles until we reach the southern entrance to Shenandoah National Park. We have decided to hike through there since Boss will not be continuing with us. We've heard many good things about hiking through there. It's easy terrain with lots of great views and you can basically hike cheeseburger to cheeseburger. We have only had one day of rain in the last week and that was a blessing. It had been horribly hot and the rain cooled things down immensely. The next day we went to resupply in Glasgow and stayed in a hotel for the night. We put everything outside to continue drying and noticed mildew growing in our not cheap rainjackets. We were not happy. We bought some special detergent this weekend to wash them. Other than that we've had a great week. We are still trying to figure out why everyone has always told us VA was the easy state. They said it was mostly level and we'd be able to do twice the miles we have been doing. The last three days on the trail we have gone from below 1,000 ft. in elevation to above 4,000 ft. in 4-5 miles at least once a day. Sometimes we will go up and down that amount over the course of the whole day. Today we will go up it and tomorrow we'll go back down it...again. Also, in the last couple of weeks we have hiked through several areas where the trees resemble spring time. It looks like the leaves are just starting to bud. The caterpillars of the gypsy moths have moved further south and have about completely killed many oak trees. In one area there were signs posted saying planes were dispersing a mating disruption pheromone trying to stop the infestation. They said it is a white powder that would make it sound like it's raining on the leaves. The funny thing is that it said if you got it on your skin to wash it thoroughly, in your eyes to flush with water, but if you ingested it not to worry unless it was in large quantities. We have also gotten into the no-see-um season. They are by far the most annoying insect we have encountered. They are these tiny gnats or midges that are smaller than fleas and can bite like the dickens. Andrew keeps saying it looks like he has chicken pox. We'll be glad when they are long gone. As far as pictures go, we didn't take that many in the last two weeks due to all the rain. The views in Virginia have also been mainly agricultural areas and other developments. We have really enjoyed the company of the other thru-hikers in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully we'll see them again in SNP.