Virginia! Tennessee is behind us now and we’re staying at “The Place,” a hostel run by the local Methodist church. This town really does cater to hikers—lodging is just $4 and you can walk to everything in town!

We had a nice walk out of the mountains in 82* sunny weather. From 20* to 80* in 3 days—go figure! The best part of the walk happened about 2 miles from the TN/VA line. Walking with Rockhound, J-Bird and Burning Boots (Green One was a bit behind), we stopped by a shelter and read the hiker register. Registers/notebooks are present in all the shelters, serving as a grapevine for thru-hikers. There were reports of emus in the mountains! Honest reports—not jokes—of emus, large ostrich-like birds. Taking that with a grain of salt, we kept walking and Rockhound calls out “Holy @$!*—I found emu feathers!” I didn’t know whether to believe him on this one! Sure enough, I take a few more steps and spot some at my own feet! 8” long, grayish/black feathers. Emus wild in Tennessee? What’ll we find next?

We had dinner with every thru-hiker in town at the Sidetrack Café. They offer a family-style dinner for the cost of a donation. We met Leki-Less, Butthead, Timber, Patrick Deaner, Mo (her mom’s a Tufts English Prof.), Beavis, Country, Rambin’ Man, Rachel, Camera 1 & Camera 2 and at least 8 others in addition to all the others we already knew or had met earlier in the day: Bramble, Flora, Fauna, Semicolon, Wandering Nunn, Wolfcookie, Dances with Wolfcookie, Burn and more. Towns like Damascus suck thru-hikers in. It’s tough to leave the camaraderie and convenience!

Cool news of the day—I found out during a phone call to Heather that she found & purchased a wedding dress while shopping with her Mom in New York! July 9, 2005—I’m getting married!

Dairy King gets my highest recommendation. I killed a corn dog, onion rings, a double burger and a chocolate shake two hours before dinner. Mmmmmmm…Corn dogggggs!!!!!!!!!