Day 76 - Saturday, August 27

Linda

Slept till 7:00 this morning, then hustled to get organized. We had so much munchy food left from the last two days, that we ended up taking a lot of it with us, because we couldn't eat it all. We were out on Rt. 340 by 8:00, but no rides availed themselves, so we started walking. Got down to the Shenandoah River, then took a side trail to the top of the ridge, rather than walking 2 more miles on the road, then backtracking to where we had left off two days ago. We walked for a few miles and crossed Rt. 9.

That was the extent of our hiking in West Virginia. Keys Gap is the border into Virginia. Between the road and Keys Gap Shelter we passed a young boy sitting beside a tree along the trail tending his lemonade stand. We were almost past him before we realized he was there, because he didn't say a word as we approached. Guess he liked the soft sell technique. We stopped and he still didn't say anything - just sat there behind his table. Finally, we asked him if he was selling lemonade to hikers and he said yes, he was trying to earn some money and the lemonade was 10 a glass. We dug out 20and had some great fresh squeezed lemonade. Could have drunk a gallon.

We were glad we stopped for a drink there, because the spring at the shelter was dry. Only stopped long enough for me to clean a smudged contact lens, then went on. We met a man out with his three kids hiking for a few days. They gave us some water, as Laurel Spring was dry also, and we stopped to eat lunch there. They went on, but we saw them again when we stopped at the spring at Wilson Gap Shelter to fill our water bottles. Went on toward Devil's Racecourse. At first the trail was a nice wide grassy road, they it turned rocky. The spring at the bottom was running, and we weren't sure of the water situation further on, so we ate dinner there and relaxed for a while before leaving at 5:30 to go on.

During our rest time, Ronald suggested we walk 14 more miles and try to camp on the fire road by 10:00, since everything in between was supposed to be paved road, and there would probably not be any good prospects for camping. We went for about 6 miles, but we were both getting tired, so we turned off onto a small section of the old AT which had a shelter on it. The AT used to be on trails in this area, but some landowners asked it to be moved off their property. That meant the whole section had to be moved onto Rt. 601 with the exception of a 1.7 mile stretch. That made 22 miles for the day, which is still pretty good progress. Hope for an early start for the rest of the road walking tomorrow.

Ron

Our 7:00 awakening shot any chance of an early departure. We ate the remaining honeydew melon and started hiking by 8:00. I was awfully sorry to toss out a quart of milk, but there was no way we could drink it. Once on Highway 340 we could not get a ride, so we had to hike the two miles to the trail head.

For some reason we never could seem to get into gear. It must have been from taking a day off. At the crossing of Route 9 we met a young boy selling fresh squeezed lemonade. We stopped for a few minutes, a little later we stopped again at the Keys Gap Lean-to to finish off the rest of the rolls from dinner last night.

At lunch we talked to a man who was out hiking the for a few days with his three kids. Water is not in great abundance on this section of the trail, so we stopped at the spring at Wilson Gap Lean-to. A few miles later we stopped for supper at the last available spring. Over and hour passed before we decided to continue. Neither one of us was too inspired to hurry. After a few more miles of trail we will be facing a 25 mile road section. We pushed on another six miles before calling it quits here at Three Springs Lean-to.

(22.5 Miles - 1155.7 Total)