The sun just set over Tennessee for the last time on this trip. Tomorrow we hike into Virginia, our 4th state, with only 11 miles to go to the state line. Four miles later, we’ll hit Damascus, VA. Nice easy hiking on these 70* sunny days!

The terrain & scenery was uneventful today—rolling up and down the ridges with farming valleys visible much of the time. We’ve covered nearly 60 miles over 3 days and it’s obvious in the heaviness of my legs. No real damage to my body though. Everything’s behaving just fine at the moment. Getting into camp early enough for a relaxed dinner helped as always.

We’re camping with Semicolon tonight and enjoying a 9pm bedtime. Plenty of sleep before the stroll into town. I need to resupply food, alcohol fuel & toilet paper. I’m also going to pick up low gaiters to keep sticks & leaves from getting into my boots. I’ll ask Heather to send my trail hiking shoes to Troutdale (65 miles ahead) to replace my boots ‘cause we’ll be done with high mountains (& winter!) when we hit that point. I need a haircut too! It’s been 9 weeks and I’m getting shaggy! I’m going to keep the beard as a thru-hike thing, though.

Damascus is known as “the friendliest town on the AT.” Let’s see if it lives up to it’s billing! Thanks to “the Slackers,” a couple who have been section hiking the AT by car-drop, leaving a car at one point, driving to another point and hiking to the dropped car. They’re left a cooler of trail magic sodas & snacks in their truck that we’ve benefited from 2 out of the last 3 days.