Our ride was at the hotel promptly at 8am this morning as promised. It turns out he was an older gentleman who is on the economic development board for Waynesboro, and was curious about what we thought of the town. We enjoyed it, and easily could have taken another day. We enjoyed our short ride back up to the trail, learning a bit about the town and some of the businesses around. And it sounds like by next hiking season, there may be a new brewery in Waynesboro for hikers to visit!
The actual hiking today wasn’t very difficult, nor particularly interesting. Just lots of gradual ups and downs on a pretty nice path. We were able to cover just over 20 miles to Blackrock Hut. We passed a bunch of deer, who are really desensitized to humans, as none of them really paid us any attention. We also saw another black bear, this one a bit farther away down a hill. I unfortunately wasn’t able to get a picture of him.
The miles are really starting to melt away quickly now. By our plan, we’ll be out of Virginia by early next week, and into Pennsylvania by late next week. Then we’ve got probably about 2 weeks of hiking in PA before we reach New Jersey, followed quickly by New York and Connecticut. It feels like it’s still far away, but in about another month, we’ll be solidly in the northeast. Here’s hoping PA isn’t as rocky and terrible as everyone’s been saying…
I love the seating arrangement !