Trail Days!

Remember how skeptical I was about hitching to Trail Days from central Virginia?

I'm a worrywort.

I hung around the gas station/deli at trail mile 693.4, just six miles short of Catawba, and had a nice breakfast of ham biscuit. I asked the ladies at the counter for a piece of cardboard and a marker so I could make a hitchin' sign. "Trail Days bound!!!" it said enthusiastically. Then I waited a bit and Long Shanks, Inferno, Cookie and Tic Toc and Lola and Sunrise showed up. Long Shanks made himself a sign and we moved to the road, a moderately busy highway [Va. Rte. 311] and stuck out our thumbs while the rest of the gang watched with interest from a picnic table behind the gas station.

Twenty minutes later we were in the back of a pickup truck headed to the intersection of 311 and Interstate 81 - that crucial road that would take us all the way down to Damascus, which was all the way down at about mile 500 [edit: mile 460] from Springer.

Once at the intersection, we decided we'd probably have the best luck if we set up with our signs and packs right where the on-ramp enters the interstate. I jammed my poles into the dirt and was lifting my sign when a car pulled over and picked us up. It was a young couple, hikers, heading the whole way from western Maryland of all places. Clutch ride! I couldn't believe our luck. To boot they had a great music selection to jam to.

As soon as we got to town we [Long Shanks and I] headed straight into one of my favorite town spots in the South: Quincey's Pizza. Huge beers, hot food, good times.

Tent City: A bulldozed wasteland at the end of Shady Lane, on the edge of town [the town is making some ball fields], ringed by a woods. At first glance, nothing was visible but a few people picking their way through the dirt and uprooted roots to get to the road into the town. At a closer look, dozens, maybe hundreds, of tents occupied the flat spaces between the trees and people were hanging out. Near the gathering of the Class of '09 was a group playing Dizzy Bat, a drinking game involving placing one's forehead on a bat handle and spinning around. There was "Alcatraz," a camp in a little island in the creek running through the woods; "Camp Riff Raff," a place for heathens, "Billville," etc. etc.

Some people from last year made it; many didn't. It was strange coming from where I came from, stealthing in the woods, two months in the woods, and seeing the people I'd met and known last summer - in the woods - who'd left their trail names behind and now wore them awkwardly after all that time down from Katahdin.

The Class of '09 held a reunion at 9 p.m. at Dot's Inn, a rustic, homely bar specializing in piss beer. It was good times. The buzz never left. Almost everyone has remained connected, even if only through Facebook. There was catching up to do and people to meet again or for the first time, in the case of people I'd met, say, for one day in Monson, or for people who'd been around but never at the same place as me. It was clear to me that people overall missed the Trail and looked back on it with fondness.

On Saturday I did town stuff until the parade.

I had no preconceptions about the parade. I figured it would be just a stupid parade. But no. Before it started, the hikers congregated near Sun Dog Outfitters and the coffeeshop. Nothing was happening for the longest time. Some people showed up in costume [Col. Mustard was Green Man]. Then we came under heavy water-balloon fire. Some young townfolk were absolutely winging the water balloons at us from the parking lot. It was pretty hilarious when they hit their targets.

And that's how it was for the next 30 minutes, or however long it took to walk the entire main street through town. Hundreds of hikers, armed with water balloons and water guns, walking through a gauntlet of even more heavily armed townfolk. Neither side showed mercy: Dads in their khakis and sunglasses were just as likely to get blasted by a skirt-wearing hiker as we were by little kids throwing their hardest from point-blank range. Hikers from the current class spotted on the street but NOT marching got it the worst. That's what happened to Greendog and Pixie: an absolute pelting.

I did not expect to have that much fun, and it was therefore all the more fun. I just wish I'd had more - many more - water balloons.

The talent show afterward was a bit of wash. Some terrible comedy, bad rapping and a bunch of mediocre bluegrass. I did like bits of the song "Hiker Funk" performed by Many Names.

Saturday night consisted of beer in Tent City, a fire in the woods and sitting inside a big pavilion tent chanting names at full volume, in order to compete with the Dizzy Bat people and their loud counting-down. "Zen! Zen! Zen!," "Fat Kid! Fat Kid! Fat Kid!" It drew the attention of Damascus's finest, who entered the tent, flashlights out, and kind-of surveyed the scene before moving on. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish, as it was clear that the entire acre was one big open container. But my night ended relatively early, myself having been sleep-deprived, sun-baked and buzzed all freaking day.

Next morning, the '09ers did breakfast at Dairy King. There were hugs goodbye, and then I put my pack in Zipper's car for the long ride back up to central Virginia. Trail Days 2010 had come to an end.