Shenandoah National Park
As you hike through Shenandoah National Park, you’ll see spectacular views and visit trail edges. Plus, if you look hard enough, you can find some great camping spots. But I must admit I was happy to walk through the park. The end of Virginia was in sight and the 500 miles to finish this state were very close.
I was lucky enough to walk through some of Virginia, including the Shenandoahs, with Ultra and Freddy Flintstone (half of the Bourbon Brothers). They were both great company and we covered approximately 20 miles a day. Ultra is an ultra-fast hiker, hence her name. I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him but he had problems with his shoes. This slowed her down a bit. That is, until he arrived in Front Royal and looked for a supplier to get a better pair of shoes. Freddy was a completely different type of hiker. He slept late and was usually the last to leave camp in the morning, but he walked well into the afternoon. Flintstone was a master at finding great tent sites and loved setting up his tent where he could watch the sunset and meditate.
The roller coaster
After the Shenandoah, I took a ‘nero’ and a ‘zero’ to let my old bones and muscles recover. Ultra and Freddy left me in the dust. A couple of days after rebooting, I had the opportunity to meet Uncle Science, a retired high school science and statistics teacher from Berkley, California. I met him in Franklin, North Carolina, my second week on the trail and we decided to hike together. We both walked the roller coaster section of Northern Virginia. It required several climbs followed by descents, followed by several more climbs and descents. It was a good way to end the state of Virginia.
The Half Gallon Challenge
If you are lactose intolerant, skip this section. On May 28, I passed a sign marking the halfway point between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. A few miles later, I arrived at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania. Adjacent to the state park is a grocery store and an ice cream shop that challenges hikers to eat a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting. If there was a challenge created specifically for me, this was it. Fifty-six minutes after purchasing a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream and an additional pint of chocolate ice cream, the cartons were empty. When you grow up in a large family, eating a half-gallon of ice cream by yourself is something you grow up dreaming about.
southern pennsylvania
Uncle Science and I had the pleasure of hiking with ‘Old Timer’ in southern Pennsylvania. It’s a relatively easy section and meeting and walking with ‘Old Timer’, a 74 year old backpacker raised in Ohio, made it a lot of fun. ‘Old Timer’ had a resume that included hiking and biking trails that was very extensive and impressive.
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