So last night the party seemed more subdued. Or maybe I was just more exhausted. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and slept through the night until a little after 6. I spent 30 minutes or so packing things up inside the tent then got up to survey the carnage. All seemed well so I went to get some coffee from the local church and we headed into town to get breakfast at the diner. On the way there in thought I’d leave my stuff at the church to get charged. But every socket in every power strip was full. I know most of those are only 2 amp chargers but it seemed to me there were 20 of them pulling from each plug.
We walked to town, got on the list for breakfast (diner seemed a popular option) and waited outside. After about 30 minutes we got seated and our orders were out seemingly minutes after we placed them. I had some hiker hash with a side of biscuits a gravy. Really good biscuit. OK gravy.
From there we went to get my jeep to drive back to tent city to pack up the rest of the way. By the time we got back after 10 nearly half of the tents had been taken down already. We got everything in the jeep then went back to long term parking to wait for our shuttle.
I remembered I wanted to get one of the Damascus Outfitters trail days shirts so walked down to pick one up. It seemed a little dark when I walked in and sure enough, the power was out. In the whole town on Damascus! Too many hikers charging their phones maybe?
I don’t have the cash for one (will pick it up tomorrow when we hike back through) so we walked back and made final preparations for a day back on the trail. Dave was early as usual and got us to the trail head a little after 12.
The first 4 miles or so were a repeat of what I did Friday since Dave wasn’t super comfortable driving his truck up the forest road where I got off. We saw the two TH that Strongman was shuttling at the trailhead and talked with them a little while I indulged in a trail magic banana someone had left.
The hike was a long the same ridge line I was on the last few days so it was pretty flat, pretty straight and there wasn’t much to see. We stopped for water at the Abingdon Gap shelter (it was a LONG walk down and back) and then did the last 4 or so miles to our stealth site for the night.
Tomorrow I’ll check Tennessee off the list (third state down) and then it’s Deja Vu all over again with a walk back into Damascus, lunch,resupply then a walk back into the woods. Coasting in to 500 miles in the next few days.
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