Project Eveningland

4/9/2023 Sunday

Wedge and I are not in a good situation as I’m writing this. We’re staying in the old schoolhouse and something’s wrong.

I wasn’t sure how we were going to manage Easter while on trail. I figured everything’d be closed. But the hostel owner found us a shuttle back to VA-672 (arranged last night). Tia had an excellent breakfast for us at Massey’s. That peach jam! Those smoked meats! Ham! An Easter feast. I worried it would be too rich for my body to handle. She’d bought some La Croix after I asked for soda water yesterday! What a gem.

Carrie picked us up and stopped to grab a SoBo named Laptop who was staying at a hotel. I asked to sit in the front on account of my motion sickness, which I’m sorry to say has been worse since the nausea from that drug. Carrie drove gentle and couldn’t have been kinder about it. I nibbled some chocolates as we unloaded our packs.

The sky was endless, cloudless, joyful. Spring seemed to have taken a leap ahead while we rested. I took a protracted snack break early and Wedge did some filming.

We gained a narrow ridge with good tread. The Myth of Gentle Virginia has taken hold I’m afraid. We’ve all convinced ourselves that this part of the AT will be so much gentler, so much easier, because it is southern Virginia after all. It simply must get easier.

The walk to Partnership Shelter is indeed a gentle affair, though it’s still a ridge hike with significant climbs. We met a very opinionated Brit while lunching at the shelter. He was indignant that the bathrooms in the nearby visitor’s center were locked and that everything else is closed. He tells us that the parks are full up on holidays in England, so why is that not the case here? This guy is in the American south on Easter Sunday and is pissed that things are closed. What can you say? I’m sure everyone has a jolly good time on the all the British long distance hiking trails. They say that across the pond all the trail loos stay open even on Boxing Day! Of course, you have to get used to the fact that they walk on the left side of the trail.

Lunch at Partnership shelter—for me, Rhetoric anyway—was peanut butter crackers, 350 calories of peanuts, jerky, cheese crisps, Funyuns, and I can’t remember what else. We were near the main pickup point for Marion but we were pressing on. Wedge says he’s now spent quite enough time in the town, and loved it, but is ready for new adventures.

The trail turned rocky again, even though another hiker had been raving about how easy that section would be. It’s still the gosh darn AT. It’s still a ridge trail. Every part of it I’ve been on has pointless ups and downs and roots and rocks. But surely Virginia is different. It has to be. It’s that Virginia Myth. It’s how we come to confuse a wish for a certainty.

It was a 17 mile day and Wedge was feeling fantastic. I’m happy for him! It was not one of my stronger days. I’m still working through how to maintain my own speed and break schedule with a hiking partner. Wedge isn’t rushing me, but I can’t seem to shake worries about “keeping up.” It will get easier. But for now I need to recommit myself to humane snack breaks.

We arrived at the old schoolhouse (built in 1894) just before seven. It’s part of a museum but they let hikers sleep in there. There’re plastic tubs full of non-perishable foods. And a chalkboard with hundreds of hiker names. It’s extremely generous that they let us stay. It’s probably a pain in the ass to let us stay. We rearranged desks to form sleeping platforms.

There was another pack and some equipment in the schoolhouse already. Wedge met the owner of the gear over at the pavilion (a part of the museum that has bathrooms and outlets that they also let hikers use). I was availing myself of a historical privy behind the schoolhouse at the time. He told Wedge he’s homeless, living on trail.

What happened next is best described in broad strokes. I was trying to write and ignore the man’s stories about people stealing things from him, the cops not helping him, him losing his wallet, and so on. Something isn’t right. The conversation is continuing passionately with almost no engagement from Wedge, and none from me. I became alarmed, rather than just annoyed, at the point at which the man said he was two weeks sober. But the first thing the man had done when he’d seen me was ask for weed. White-knuckle sobriety is not an especially stable place to be, or so I’m told.

Remember that I had my headphones in and white noise machine on because I was trying to write. And I was anxious as hell. So I’m lying in my little sleeping nook (a bunch of antique desks pushed together) and I keep dipping in (removing my headphones) to check on Wedge. Me engaging wouldn’t have helped end the monologue any sooner. It was Wedge who saw the man eyeing a brick that had been placed next to the man’s sleeping area. Suddenly Wedge didn’t fancy sleeping in the schoolhouse with this man. Nor did I. I kept a wary eye on our stuff. He ducked out to call a nearby hostel.

I must credit Wedge for fast, bold action. I must credit me for smoothly lying on the fly to help maintain the gentle fiction that we had been trying to reach a hostel all along and had only just heard back. Cindy, the hostel owner, pulled up about 5-10 minutes later. Wedge said he’d never packed faster. I also set a speed record. We are staying at a bunkhouse on an alpaca farm. Ranch? I like to think that alpacas are grown.

I don’t want to be hard on someone who’s experiencing homelessness and addiction. I feel for the guy. I want him to have a place to go and be safe and get help. We wish him recovery.

I wasn’t sure what, if anything, to write about this. I don’t want anyone to be afraid for me. I don’t want my parents to worry. I wouldn’t have even considered staying in the schoolhouse if I hadn’t been with Wedge, who’s retired military and no dummy. I would have kept walking, exhausted or no, cold or no. I think it’s unlikely we were in actual danger, but that was close enough for me, thanks.

Whenever I get warnings on trail (about a snake six miles up, about ticks, about weather), I fear I’m in for a lecture. There’s nothing you can say to stop it. For example, a shuttle driver back in NC was talking about ticks on and on while we drove and I couldn’t take it any more. I tried to stop her by saying, “yes, it is so good to be reminded of that hazard. We are going to take multiple overlapping measures to mitigate the risk as much as we can. Your warning reaffirms my commitment to diligent action. Thank you.” Or something like that. A brief silence ensued, and then the discourse about how dangerous ticks are just went on as though I hadn’t said anything.

Neither Wedge nor I particularly need lessons on how to recognize danger, or the importance of leaving a situation when you feel something is off. We don’t need a reminder that there may be a few dangerous people out here (because of course there are because there are everywhere). Here’s what I want instead at this moment: how about a biblical parable, since it’s Easter. The parable should be about a neurotic traveling rhetorician (yes, they had rhetoricians long before Christ). This sweet, gentle rhetorician doesn’t want to lift the hem of his robes to step over the downtrodden. But he also has zero desire to have his head bashed in with a brick.