Tuesday, May 8, 2012

A Quick Peek at Angel's Rest

Last night, the wind really picked up, to the point that the Snuggles were not adequate, and out came the sleeping bags again - just when we had convinced ourselves that we would not use them again.  It began blowing in gusts across the mountain top, and as it rushed across the tree tops, it came in waves.  It sounded very much likes waves on the beach at the seaside.  Early in the morning, it started to lightly rain.  Not good for hiking or packing up a tent.  We waited a while and it lightened up, and we jumped up, packed up, and started hiking.  We only had 8 miles to get to Pearisburg, where we would pull our next zero day.  It rained on and off all morning as we hiked, but never hard. 
At one point, we reached Angel's Rest, a place where you would have a beautiful view on a clear day, but we were stuck in the clouds.  There was no view whatsoever.  I decided to take a picture of that, the clouds, just to show you the view (or lack thereof), when all of a sudden, a gust blew up, and blew a big hole right into the clouds, and all of a sudden, I had a view!  I couldn't believe it.  I quickly took a couple of pics, and all of a sudden, it was gone again. 
I also thought "Angel's Rest" was a beautiful name, and thought it would have been nice if they let the person who named this vista, also name the falls from the day before. 
As we got closer to town, the trail was made of clay, and now that it was wet, it was like ice.  Poor Swamprat slipped down, and bent his trekking pole.  He was not hurt though.  We were really careful the rest of the way.  When we got out of the woods, Sipsey was there just getting out of a car, and he offered his shuttle to us.  That driver was named Don, and he said he'd be happy to take us to the hotel we were staying at.  Perfect timing!
We went to the Plaza Motel in Pearisburg, VA, and the manager told us she would do our laundry if we brought it to her.  Awesome!  We showered and put on dry clothes and took it all to her.  Later on, she called us when it was ready.
We soon discovered that just 2 doors down was Craftsman, Machete Mitch, and Turtle.  How in the world do we keep ending up with these guys????  We were going to be here for 2 nights while we rested up, so we made the best of it, and got neighborly with them, visiting most of the day, and then going across the street for mexican food with them and Dirty Girl.  I couldn't believe we were sharing a table with the same group the every local authority up and down the trail seemed to be pursuing.  They still seemed very harmless to us, and we especially trusted Swamprat's judgment on this, since he was the retired State Police Officer.





















See the double blaze on this tree?


That tells us the trail is about to take a turn or go off in a different direction.

No comments: