Day 41 (Friday, May 23rd) - Low Gap camp to Damascus

Today's Miles: 15.20
Trip Miles: 467.60

Mike was still ill from the night before, so Natalie and I packed up and tried not to aggravate the situation. We had fifteen miles to town and I just wanted to get there fast. We headed out in the fog and I tried to keep an even but quick pace. A couple of hours out, Mike needed to stop and Natalie felt she should keep going because she thought she was slowing us down (not true).

State line

Mike seemed a tad better after his break and we set off after N. For someone who was slowing us down she was moving pretty fast. We didn't catch her, she stopped to wait for us.

We got to the state line at 12:30. Three and a half miles to go until Damascus. I said, "Let's do it in an hour." I got the 'creep' look, but we headed out at a good pace. An hour later to the minute we stepped onto the streets of Damascus. The first order of business was some food. We went to the Blue Blaze Cafe. Nice place, decent food, good craft beer. Next was finding the mail drops. We knew Mike's was at Sundog Outfitters, Natalie wasn't sure where hers was. We checked the other two outfitters before going to Sundog, no luck. It wasn't at Sundog either. She called home and found out it was at the post office which was closing in fifteen minutes and was at the other side of town. Sam, who works at Sundog, asked what was up. I said N had medicine at the post office but couldn't get there in time. So Sam says, "Take my car." He gave Mike the keys and off they went.

Sam

Again the kindness of strangers out here is staggering and humbling. They made it in time and unbeknownst to Sam, the kids left him some gas money. Good kids. Thanks, Sam!

There are no motels in Damascus and we wanted our own shower so we hitched to Abingdon, eleven miles away. It took about two minutes of hitching before Terri, a great lady from the area, picked us up and took us straight to the motel. She gave us her number in case we got stuck for a ride later. Thanks so much, Terri! She said she'll be hiking as Teapot when she thrus. I hope I can help you out when you get to N.H.

We settled in, and Natalie seems to have the bug. Uh oh! I think a zero is in order for Saturday.

TTFN  

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