Blogs from Virginia, United States, North America - page 108

Great landscape photos and a nice chalet.... read more

10.5 miles today, should have been 9.5 but a trail relocation added one extra mile. We haven't said much about any other hikers or flowers or trail conditions so I'll try to catch you up. We see between three and a dozen northbound hikers every day. Most started in late January to early March. Most are real lean when we see them and they are all moving much faster than us. They have trimmed down their pack weights to the minimum. Here are some of the trail names we have met. Professor, Bobsled, Zero, Dogfather, Snakebite, Littlefoot, Dragon Breath, Ladybug, Junebug, Acorn, Natural High, Twofer, Snack Break, Dirty Blond, Boone, Backbend, Grasshopper, Wing-Heart, Spike and Mt Cameron. I'm not sure what the men to women ratio is, but they are about 8:1 I would guess. ... read more

Wind blew last night and kept us cool. Stayed in the shelter and not the tent. We passed a youth group while climbing the Priest yesterday and they took up all the tenting spots. It was just one guy "Quatro", CC and I so there was plenty of room. Left the shelter at 9AM as we had planned a short miles day. We dropped down the south side of The Priest to VA826 over a knob to Cash Hollow Rd then over Main Top Mountain just over 4,000'. Down past the Fish Hatchery Rd that runs into Montebello and the trail famous "Dutch Haus." If you walk the mile down the mountain before 11:30AM, you get a free big lunch. A ploy to get you to stay the night, pay for a bed, dinner and the ... read more

Yesterday was our longest as far as miles traveled in one day. Today was the most elevation lost and gained in a single day. Started at the Maupin Field shelter, ele 2,720'. Dropped down into Tye River at VA Hwy56 ele 997'. Then up "The Priest" 4,063' and down to the shelter at 3,840' -1946', +3066, all this over 10.4 miles. We amazed ourselves and a couple of weekend hikers. We walked past them at the bottom of The Priest. We had a 15 minute head start up the mountain. They caught us 45 minutes later. Try as they might they could never get more than a few hundred feet ahead of us! We had already walked four hours when we met them and just plodded up the hill at a constant rate. After we got ... read more

Match day is a huge milestone in a China adoption and mine was a surprise to everyone. I had a LID to China of 10/31/2005 and was fully expecting to get my match in April or May of 2007. But then the bad news hit -- my agency was contacted by the China Center for Adoption Affairs and informed that my match would be delayed by several months due to a paperwork glitch that had occured almost a year ago. After a few days of dealing with the emotional devastation that comes with that kind of news, I became philosophical about the process. It clearly was just not my time yet but it would eventually come. So, I continued on with my life and tried to focus on other things. I stopped all the preparations ... read more