06/28

The rain came in hard last night. I woke to droplets of water bouncing off puddles of mud and on my face. I don’t know how, but despite my best efforts, I still got wet inside my tent. Usually, it’s only during heavy downpours when the water pools beneath the gap in my rain fly. The worst part is, even if I knew how to remedy the situation, I couldn’t just get out of my tent in the middle of a storm to do so. Instead, I was stuck huddled inside, hoping it passed soon.

By the time the morning came, my tent was covered in mud. Luckily, we planned for a shorter day into town. An easy 7-mile hike past the historic “Brown Creek Town” ruins. A sharecropping community of freed slaves. While there were a few signs and benches, I was surprised the area wasn’t a protected state park of some sort. At a particularly narrow part of the trail, Nick spotted a snake curled up in the brush to our right. While he was encouraging me to get a picture, the snake struck at me! I jumped and ran a few feet down the trail. Come to find out later, it was a dam copperhead. Once again dodging death, we hiked out of the forest and into a small parking area where some of the best trail magic yet was waiting for us. “Songbird”and “G-bird” had quite a spread prepared. Homemade chicken salad, artisan bread, fruit, beer, snacks, and pen and paper for us to send a letter home. I chose to write to my green-thumbed sister who was supposed to be helping my plants back home. “If Elton dies, there will be hell to pay” - love, Kevin. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, as just when I finished my sandwich and beer, our shuttle to the hostel in town arrived. The White Tree Inn, Buena Vista, VA. A historic home turned hostel by a Mormon family. Or at least I think they were Mormon. The town’s private college was owned by the Church of Latter-day Saints. This is where Chris, our driver and caretaker’s husband, had worked as the dean of admissions for many years. After a quick tour of the college grounds, we made it back to the hostel where we showered, did laundry, and went looking for something to eat.

Buena Vista is pronounced [BEE-YOU-NUH] vista around these parts. A town with maybe 2 street lights, and a weird aversion to “homeless hikers”. Walking down the red brick sidewalk, we came across a Hibachi restaurant. The food was decent, but the atmosphere was bizarre. It looked like a large bingo hall, with one guy taking orders by the door. We sat in the booth watching the ants march in from the window and onto our table. To make it a party a bratty kid from the only other occupied table, ran screaming up and down the walkway. Once the caretakers returned from church, they drove us to the grocery store a few miles away, and we had a heartfelt conversation about making the world a better place. These were good people. They told us of their eight children, one of which passed away last year due to complications with diabetes. He was a singer. Classically trained and even preformed at Carnegie Hall. You could tell there was lots of love in their family and they were looking for a way to share it with the world. Hence why they opened their home to become a hiker hostel.   

Once we returned to the house, we had to unpack all the food and organize everything into ziplocks. A time consuming process that has become one of my most dreaded town chores. Exhausted from a long day and ready for sleep I was so glad to be laying in a bed rather than a tent. It felt like magic. With the AC turned nice and low, and a storm thundering outside. I fell asleep in minutes.