May 8: Woods Hole Hostel

I got out of Jenny Knob Shelter good and early, around 8 a.m. I think, tired and with my underwear sticking to my skin with the moisture of the previous four days of nonstop sweat. The air at night had been oppresive.

At Trent's Grocery, .5 miles off the trail, I ate the breakfast special: French toast, eggs and sausage; a milkshake, three cups of coffee, a [microwaved] cheeseburger, a Monster energy drink, two zebra cakes and a little carton of fresh strawberries.

Less than an hour later I was sitting beneath a cascade of water at Dismal Falls, watched by a group of youngish hikers on an outing, my breath coming fast with the shock of the cold water. As I picked my footing across the slick surfaces of the creek bottom I felt awoken. When I sat down to put my shoes on I noticed a dozen or more tiny little leeches affixed to my legs.

When I arrived at Woods Hole Hostel, a rustic little homestead in the Virginia hills, in the later afternoon and stepped onto the wraparound deck, I was shocked to spot none other than Tintin at the computer. It seems that no matter how far ahead I think he and his companions, Fredo and Tornado, have gotten, they reappear when I least expect them to.

"What's up, fool?" he said in his Liverpool gangsta way.

So it was just the four of us plus an older lady section hiker named Tenderfoot joining the hostel's owners, Michael and Neville, for dinner.

Dinner at Woods Hole is an event.

We held hands around the table, Fredo on my left, Michael on my right. A cat sat in a chair nearby while dogs roamed beneath the table. We went around the table giving our trail name, where from and what we were grateful for. Then Neville showed us how to wrap our venison burritoes properly.

The young couple took over the hostel from Neville's grandparents, not too long ago. In fact this is their second thru-hiker season. They met when Michael rolled through as a thru-hiker several years ago.

The hostel is one of those unique places that you'd only ever find if you hiked the AT. An outdoor, solar-heated shower, a house populated by plants, dogs, walls made from wood more than a century old and a wood-burning heating system.

Afterwards we helped with the dishes. While the boys played cards in the common space below the bunkhouse, it was an early night for me. I slept snugly in my sleeping bag on a huge mattress. The bunkhouse was unheated, and the temperature dropped quite a bit.