Full-On Zero
Wife post: Me, again, you all! (Sorry?) While I made breakfast (scrambled eggs with the leftover salmon, toast, and lots of fresh fruit), Rob continued to spread his stuff out all over the back porch and set up his tent so it could dry out.
The river and the Virginia Creeper Trail were directly across the street from our AirBnb, so after breakfast, we took Thistle over for a swim and a short walk. Btw, the Food City was less than a half mile down the road, so all day, we kept seeing thru-hikers walking by to resupply. Occasionally, Rob would see someone he knew through the window and let me know. Misneach. Styles. Ma and Pa. Beans. It was cool to get to put faces to trail names a bit.
I’d brought barber scissors from home, just in case, and Rob was definitely in need of a trim. So I gave him a bit of a haircut and a neck shave in the yard and took care of some wild, errant eyebrow hairs (his “Andy Rooneys”). I also brought his clippers, so he was able to shorten up and shape his beard, too. He looked a lot less wild after all that.
He took a little time to patch some more holes in his tent, and then after some quick showers, we headed downtown to the outfitters to do some gear shopping. Rob had been marveling at how good his boots still looked this far in, and the treads on the bottom somehow seemed as though he’d barely started hiking, but when he spoke to the guy at the outfitters, he learned that looks don’t actually mean anything in this context.
Rob explained that his boots had been feeling really hard, even after he’d added the inserts he’d found in the hiker box, and the guy said that was because he’d probably gotten everything out of them that he could. So Rob tried on a few new pairs, but they didn’t have the size he needed in the style he liked best. (I later found them on Amazon for $50 less, so it’s probably a good thing they weren’t in stock!) He also picked up some more fuel, sun sleeves (he considered a sun hoodie but worried he’d be too hot in it), a compact sun umbrella, a bug net for his face/head, and a pair of sunglasses.
Just outside the outfitters, we ran into “Other Rob,” whose wife had come down from Ohio to spend a day or two with him in Damascus. Rob asked if he’d gotten a trail name yet, and he said, “Well, I might have today.” When we asked what it was, he said he’d been charging up an incline and whizzed by someone who yelled out something like, “You came up that so fast, they should call you Rabbit.” Rob agreed that that would be a fitting name for him, so maybe it’ll stick?
Next, we walked down a few doors to the Appalachian Heritage Distillery and split a taster (vodka, gin, bourbon, rye). It’s a beautiful space, the people were incredibly nice, and we really liked their stuff. According to Virginia ABC rules, you can either get one taster or two small cocktails, and since we’d split the taster, we could technically still have one drink each. He got a negroni, and I ordered a boulevardier, and we enjoyed them out on the patio. Definitely recommended.
We’d originally planned to have dinner at a place in Abingdon, about 20 minutes away, but that suddenly felt like too much effort, so we changed our minds and figured we’d continue walking down Main Street to Wicked Chicken instead. We’d barely made it 50 feet when a car pulled up next to us — it was Rabbit and his wife, who were headed to the same place. They offered us a ride, and we ended up eating dinner with them. At one point, Rabbit stepped away, and we thought he’d gone to hit the restroom, but it turned out that he’d paid for our dinner! Trail Magic! Or Town Magic! Whatever, it was a nice gesture, and we appreciated it!
They dropped us off at the distillery on the way back because we wanted to try the brewery that had just opened next door to it the day before. Rob got an amber ale, and I honestly can’t remember what I got (hazy IPA?), but we only got a few sips in before Rob said, “Let’s go back to the house so we can have a real beer.” We quietly slipped our still-full cups into the trash as we snuck out.
Back at the house, we refreshed our palates with more Decipher Deici and Barley Late, and then split the second of the specialty beers our friend Sebastian had sent along: Congress Street IPA from Trillium Brewing Company in Boston, MA. So. Freaking. Good. If you ever see an IPA from Trillium, do yourself a favor, and just get it.
For “dessert,” we had a bourbon-barrel-aged Artemis from Decipher, and Rob couldn’t stop commenting on how great it was. He’s really been missing barrel-aged beers on his hike. The internet had been out all day for some reason, so Rob used his phone as a hot spot, and we watched some AT videos by two thru-hikers we like (Ranger, who hiked last year, and Gadget, who’s a week or two ahead of Rob on the trail this year), followed by a few more episodes of “Ghosts,” and then it was lights out.
