and I suspect I never will. Perhaps it is because I have never fallen in love
with the A.T. as others have.
Jerry and I went for a short journey this past week. Jerry had made reservations for us at Wood’s Hole Hostel near Pearisburg VA for two nights. (
http://www.woodsholehostel.com/ I encourage you to visit the website if you have time. This is a hostel is located ½ mile from the A.T. He stopped by there in 2010. At that time it was Trails Day Weekend in Damascus VA, a little further south and not much was happening at the hostel. Jerry continued to talk about the hostel and so two years later he made reservations for us to visit. We arrived about 4:00 in the afternoon after traveling almost 7 hours on the interstate, state routes, a gravel road and finally a one lane dirt road with cattle guards. The yard was in the process of collecting hikers for the night.
The ‘house’ consisted in part of the original log cabin built in 1880. The couple running the place, Neville and Michael, were both very high energy and welcoming peoplethe place showed it. Raised bed gardens were everywhere along with bee hives, chickens, pigs, goats and an ever growing number of hikers. There is a bunk house where the many hikers sleep upstairs. The house included three guest bedrooms, a massage room, a living room, kitchen and two baths. We were in one of the upstairs bedrooms and shared a bath with a three bed room. The porch had two porch swings, 4 rocking chairs, two sling chairs, one table, about six other chairs, a hand carved 6’ bench with guitars carved on either side, a sign that said ‘leave shoes here before entering’ and one computer. Oh - and about 4 dogs, 4 cats and at one point the pigs got out and there were two pigs on the porch also. (The pigs were kind of cute and thought they were part of the family.)
So for the price of a nights stay the hikers got a full breakfast. A hiker size breakfast! There was coffee, juice served in Mason Jars, homemade bread with homemade apple butter, strawberry jam, eggs from the chickens with fixins’ from the garden, peach crisp, orange slices. All served up by Neville and a few volunteers. A person could also purchase dinner. Our first dinner was a wonderful salad from the garden, pasta and homemade tomato sauce and homemade bread. All hiker size! After clean up ---oh yea, clean up ---was done by Neville and a few volunteers. The first order of business was to put the plates on the floor for the dogs to lick clean, then they went in to the dishwasher-the plates not the dogs. Then the huge cooking pots went on to the floor – for the dogs to lick clean. That was an interesting sight, their heads were completely in the pots. I was helping to dry the things that would not fit in to the dishwasher. Neville was washing. When you’d pick up an item to dry Neville would call out directions as to where the item went. ‘Right of stove, door on left, top shelf, middle stack.’ This when on for about 30 minutes. She did not miss a beat. After clean up she brought out the box on 100 ice cream cones and the 5 gallon bucket of ice cream. Bucket of ice cream went on the table and she stood on a step stool to scoop it out. The whole meal was quite an experience. Did I mention that this meal served 28 people? The meal was eaten off of real plates and people sat outside any where they could. Before the meal we joined hands in a circle and each mentioned something they were grateful for.
Neville mentioned that this was the beginning of their peak season. For the next 6 weeks or so they would keep up this pace every day. Did I mention that they were high energy people? Did I mention that she did Yoga sessions during the day and meditation session in the evening?
During the day Jerry and I hiked for a couple of hours on the A.T.. We were in search of some of his favorite wildflowers from the trail. As it turns out we are about a week too early. But he remembered the trail and was happy to be back on it even if I was slow and clumsy. At one point he stopped, looked off to the right of the path at a fallen tree and said something like ‘If I remember correctly there was a lady slipper blooming by this tree two years ago.’ Off he went to look for it while I stood wondering how a person could remember something that exact from 2 years ago when they can’t even remember to write dates on the family calendar.
Jerry was able to provide some of the hikers with information about things that were just down the trail or in the next state or during the next six months of their journey.
The trail is not my thing. I do not have or ever will have a love affair with it – but apparently a lot of people do.
We met some interesting hikers with interesting names and interesting stories. It was good to be a Wood’s Hole if only for a short time.
On the way home we took an extra night and camped at a state forest in WV. It is always good to be outdoors!!
So what don't I get? People who are so generous as to open their home and their hearts to hikers
to so many stranger. People who set out on a six month + journey through rain, hot sun, ups and downs, risking injuries and life changing moments - oh, okay, maybe I do get it...
