Miles Hiked: 17.6
Miles Left: 1534.4
Ending Location: Mile 650.9, Stony Creek Valley, Comfort Suites Hotel, Blacksburg VA

Today was another day where the hiking itself might merit a paragraph while everything else I could go on and on about. It was a nice sunny day and the road crossings were such that we were able to cover some real miles vs having to cut our hike short to be picked up. The mountains gave us some nice views and I managed to climb a tree so when we finished up for the day I was feeling like we accomplished a lot.

Then it was into Blacksburg for dinner and beers at the Rivermill. I was feeling exhausted though so I went with a Mai-Tai instead for the vitamin C. As we left we heard what sounded like a concert going on over by the drill field. Going to investigate it we found the Mowglis were playing a free concert in front of the graduate housing by the student center. They had that hit song “San Francisco” a while back … if you don’t know of them ask your kids ;p In short though they were really good and all of us were grinning ear to ear and laughing at our good luck. After the concert we grabbed some ice cream from a self serve frozen yogurt place. Wiki complained about how these places never say how much anything costs so we jokingly got into a contest to see who could spend the most. The Lorax won with a leaning monstrosity of ice cream and cookie toppings but he still managed to make it out of there for under ten bucks so it was an affordable evening.

I guess what keeps getting me is how everyday on this trip seems to bring something new and notable. I don’t think I would have ever made it down to Blacksburg again if I hadn’t hiked the AT and here I’ve been able to spend almost two weeks in the area reliving old college memories and making new ones. I’m looking forward to being able to getting back to normal backpacking as it’s so much simpler, (planning is annoying), and it’ll be nice to have some space to myself in my tent vs sharing a hotel room with four other people, but I’m very glad I took this opportunity to slack pack.