I woke up the next morning to pouring down rain and decided I would wait it out and zero again. Unfortunately, the rest of the locomotives pushed on and we made a plan to meet in a couple days when I could catch up. I slept the rest of the day and got some much needed natural sleep energy. I woke up late that night and decided to grab some dinner and a few beers with a couple other hikers. We ran into a character named Redneck who was clearly homeless and not a hiker and he joined us uncomfortably. The whole time he was making hints that he wanted us to buy him a beer. I was extremely uncomfortable as he talked about hiking out with us the next day. When he asked me if I was also on food stamps, I had had enough and I left quickly with my friend Oyster. I missed my friends. I left quickly the next morning to try to catch them that day instead of taking a few days to catch up. As I walked out of town, Oyster caught up and we headed down the Virginia Creeper trail that the AT meets up with. As we walked, we talked about how thankful we were that we made it out of town without Redneck. Not 20 minutes later, he comes walking down the trail towards us. My whole body froze as he walked up saying he had been looking for us. He asked if we could come back to his camp and help him pack up his stuff. I looked around, there was a seldomly used road but it was across a raging river. There was no way out so we kept moving down the trail towards his campsite. I got my phone out and took a picture of him before loudly exclaiming that I couldn't believe I had service out there even though we were SOL in getting a call out. My other hand was gripped firmly around the knife in my pocket, not knowing what was going to happen when we told him we would not be hiking with him anywhere. The most uncomfortable hour of my life finally ended when we got to a campsite with many tents. I let out a sigh, relieved that there were others in the area. As he veered off towards his massive tent we quickly said we were going to do our own thing and kept moving down trail. I didn't stop the rest of the day in fear he would come up behind. After 20+ miles I decided he probably couldn't walk that far with a school backpack and a duffel bag strapped to his chest. Unfortunately, I hadn't caught up to my friends yet and I spent a terrible night alone in the forest. I got up the next day and moved quickly trying to get to them. We entered the most gorgeous part of the trail so far, the Grayson highlands, which still has wild ponies roaming around. I got to a road where some hikers were congregating. They were headed back to damascus for a hiker open mic night and I decided to join. It was incredible to see so many people I hadn't seen in a long time and there were so many talented hikers. After getting back to town, I got a text from my friends and realized I had only been two miles behind them when I got to the road. I kicked myself but vowed to catch them early the next day. We finally were reunited at the partnership shelter, which is close enough to a road to order pizza. I had finally made it back to the locomotives and I vowed to never let them leave without me again. It poured on us the entire next day until we got into a town to resupply and decided to dry out in a hotel for the night. We got out early the next morning because it was our first marathon day. Lemon and Shay are from Boston and knew a few people running the Boston marathon that same day. Lemon was also at mile 20 of the race when the bombing occurred. As she described the chaos and pain that the entire city felt that day, I knew I wanted to hike the marathon too. We moved fast and kept our spirits high, though the trail was muddy and soggy from all of the rain the day before. Nearing the end of the day, we got to a river where the bridge was now submerged at least two feet and had rushing water flowing over it. We knew we would be swept away if we tried to cross here alone. I went into outdoor ed mode and yelled over the loud river for everyone to unbuckle their packs and get in a line behind each other. As one large group we moved slowly across the massive waves, Shay directing us. We made it across safely and felt elated that our team work had worked! We hiked on, soaking wet but in great moods. We got to our destination and made dinner together before crawling into the shelter just as the rain and thunder hit that night.
We did a few more big mile days and it was definitely beginning to wear on us. We went to Woods Hole hostel and had an amazing organic dinner that they grew on the property. The next day we got up early and slack packed back into Wood hole hostel where they were going to a concert in Radford. They invited us to go and we jumped at the chance to do something normal. We saw Rising Appalachia who were wonderful! We danced all night and even got to meet the band and get their autographs. We crawled into the hostel bunks late that night and fell asleep immediately. We had an amazing breakfast the next morning before hitting the trail and resupplying in a town not far. The weather has been cold and rainy and I'm pretty sick of being soggy all of the time. Sometimes it even rains when the sun is out which does not compute in my west coast brain. Hoping things turn around and we get some nice weather soon. Mile 635! More than a quarter of the way done and having a great time with great people.