Day 37 – Becoming dubs

After a good night’s sleep, I got up from my bunk in anticipation of my day zero in Trail City USADamascus, Virginia.

A day in the city

I started the morning by making a cup of coffee at the hostel and enjoying a couple of cups while chatting with my parents. It was nice to catch up with them and it was a good start to the day. After that I headed to the Damascus Diner for breakfast. I received an order of biscuits and gravy, along with French toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon. Everything was great! Then it was on to my responsibilities in the city. It started with a stop at the post office, where I picked up a package from my friends from The Trek (thanks Jess!) with some goodies for me. After that, I stopped at the city’s Trail Center and learned about the upcoming trail detour outside Damascus, due to damage from Hurricane Helene that they are still cleaning up. The ladies at the Trail Center are a great help! And finally, I went to the supplier in town to have a look, although in the end I didn’t buy anything. Then I headed back to the hostel to hang out and go to Dairy King for lunch, which was an Oreo milkshake and a double cheeseburger.

King of dairy

R and R

After lunch I was at the hostel with Ghost and Vermont, a couple of guys I did the Damascus marathon with yesterday. We had a few beers while playing mini golf in the backyard. I then sat down to work on my blog posts, but only got a little bit done before getting caught up in some conversations. Those conversations lasted until dinner, when a group of us went to the Tipsy Bear. As is customary at this point, I ordered a 14″ pizza while we shared some appetizers. Needless to say, I ate the entire pizza.

no prisoners

After dinner, I finally replenished the food I had been putting off all day. Dirty Dog and I grabbed some bikes and rode about 1 mile to Food City. After getting food for 5 days, we returned to the hostel in the dark, fortunately most of the journey was on a bike path. Once back at the hostel, I packed all my things and got them ready to leave in the morning.

Finally a trail name

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

fold (verb)

1. to. To confer the title of knighthood.

b. Call by a distinctive title, epithet or nickname.

During the day, I received a message from Red Fox, who I met at Boots Off Hostel a couple of days earlier. Some of the topics we discussed were blogging for Trek and my lack of a trail name. Well, she had a couple of route name ideas for me, one of which was «Dub,» which she thought was perfect. Upon receiving the trail name suggestion, it didn’t take me long to accept it! I didn’t have strict criteria for accepting a trail name, but I wanted something original or unique. Plus something that came from my experience on the trail. This suggestion checked both boxes and hit on one of my favorite (and proudest) parts of my trail experience so far, naming trails and following up with a formal dubbing ceremony, much like a knighting would. From now on I’ll be Dubs!

Statistics for day 37:

0 miles

0′ rise, 0′ fall

Broken Fiddle Hostel to Broken Fiddle Hostel

1 DSLC…

Stove use times: 7

Tracker of whole pizzas consumed: 5

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