Pearisburg-6/10

We spent last night in a motel in the nice small city of Pearisburg, Va. Its been a while since I've written, so there will be much for me to say. Unfortunatly, we are pressed for time so I'm not sure that I will get to all of it.

Our biggest event in the past two weeks was the forth of July. We celebrated in style of course. Since we could not attend the Highland Park fireworks show in Donaldson Park, we did our best to reenact it. We each bought fireworks, and to top it off, we purchased a bottle of rum aswell. Both of those aquisitions went according to plan, as we supplemented them with music (my crank radio) and partied the night away. While our fireworks never left the ground (state law, they were actually more like sparklers), we definitly found our spirits raised by the good and relaxing times we were having (alcohol induced or not, i can't be sure).

That very night we had expected large/torrential rain storms, so headed by Jake, we hatched a plan to fight back. We were at a campsite, so we devised a rain tarp to cover our tents, so we could have a "common area" to be in if the rain ever came. The problem was, that the only store we passed, a gas station, had no tarps. We decided on buying 10 large trash bags, and using duck tape to do the job of transforming them into a tarp. Our tents were positioned all facing eachother, to for a triangle between us. Our "tarp" ended up staying up all night, problem was, we were barely rained upon. The next day called for 70% change of rain, but we again somehow skirted it, and walked through nice sunny weather the entire day.

A few nights later, we were staying in a shelter (3 walls and a floor) and were all ready for bed when catastophe (at least for Jake) hit. Laying down reading our books, Jake looks up at the ceiling to find a giant spider crawling directly above him. When we say giant, we mean nearly the size of your hand. Jake's freakout began with the low pitched "ooo no", but culminated in his upheaval from the shelter and subsiquint wimpers from over by the fire (which he rebuilt to epic proportions). Before Josh and I were allowed to kill the beast, all of Jakes things had to be moved from the vacinity, because "if we missed and it touched his sleeping bag, he could never use it again". Anyway, Josh wacked the bugger with a stick, and crisis was averted.

We also managed to have our best dinner on the trail. After visiting Bland (yes, thats the name of the town), we hiked a few miles out to our campsite. Knowing we would have this short hike beforehand, we had the foresight to decide on a nice dinner, regardless of weight, that we could make on the trail. We bought steaks. While marinating them in bbq sauce, siracha and spices, we built up a nice fire, then let it turn to embers. We then built a platform out of flattened sticks and cooked our steaks right on that. We flipped them with a steak fork we carved, and what can i say, that was some of the best steak I've ever had. Perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, and the perfect group of people to eat it with.

It is about time for me to be getting out of here; i mean, we are walking the appalacian trail, not blogging for a living. I hope this was enough of an update. While our next maildrop site is listed to the right, we do have potential for other stops before then, so hopefully i'll be able to write again before we arrive in Waynesboro. Hope everyone out in the real world is well, and I'll talk to you again soon.