Greetings Friends!!

Well it's been an exciting week or two to say the least. A whole lot has happened, I will try to get as much of it down as I can before the public library in Glasgow, VA is forced to close due to the incredible odor of myself and a fellow thru-hiker seated beside me.

After Pearisburg, some amigos and I became aware of a serious situation in our schedule. We were on track to hit the somewhat famous trail town Catawba early in the week. Now, usually this would not be an issue (actually we usually don't even know what day of the week it is) HOWEVER, Catawba is famous for one reason only... the Home Place. The Home Place is an incredible All You Can Eat, family style restaurant that is only open Thursday-Sunday. The seriousness of this reality forced us to adapt an entirely new plan: The Catawba Crawl. The Crawl was 4 strenuous days of very light mileage and lots of slacking off/side trail walking undertaken by myself, Candy Bar, Tater, Dirty, Blackfoot, G, Boognish, Jake (aka Dr. Vic Nectar, Climatologist) and Jules, the most terrified dog in the world.

While the short days sometimes drove us to temporary insanity (example: one night at a shelter we found a scrap of iron in the fire pit, and decided to forge a sword out of it. It turns out forging swords with rocks is not as easy as you may think), the juice was definitely worth the squeeze. At the homeplace, a dozen hikers packed in beside well dressed families and gorged ourselves. They just...kept..bringing...food...out...

It was amazing.

After the feeding frenzy, we all collapsed on the restaurant's lawn and contemplated our futures. Tater, Blackfoot, Candy Bar and I decided to stick with Laura, a hiker friend of Tater's who had been forced off the trail by a broken ankle and had returned in her cast to give us trail magic and rides. We went to Laura's hotel room in Roanoke where we watched cartoons and ate ice cream.

After that, we actually hiked. Honest! Including a few big days, and some high mileage night hikes that were a lot of fun.

There has been a ton of thunderstorming lately, and I have had the good (?) luck of being at some interesting high elevations to watch these storms blow in on me. Yesterday, I was actually running off a mountain with DIME SIZED HAIL falling on me! I have never seen hail so big! It legitimately hurt. Combine that with one very close lightning strike, and you have never SEEN a guy hike so fast.

Anyways, this morning I crossed the historical James River, and am now in Glasgow after a pretty easy hitch into town. Once I finish my errands and grab lunch, it's on to Waynesboro, the southern boundary of the Shenandoah National Park. After a fun week in Shenandoah, it's FINALLY OUT OF VIRGINIA!! HUZZAH!!

Missing you all lots, send messages!

Rob
"Bigby"