Project Eveningland

4/15/2023 Saturday

Today I heard a respectable southern woman (the owner of the hostel) speak the following phrase with no irony or awkwardness at all: “here’s your dinner, Hot Legs.”

Wedge and I need a concierge. Or perhaps a team of personal assistants, given the logistical headaches swirling around us this morning. I wouldn’t say hostel-jumping is an art. There’s no “but” coming. I just wouldn’t say that.

Somebody in the hostel got real sick last night. Both-ends kind of sick. Yikes. And reservations got scrambled so it looked like we were short one spot. I think the problem is that most hikers look the same. They’re bearded White men of a certain age, which can make oral agreements real, real tricky. We thought we had better formulate a plan. Do we need to escape a contagion? Should we get a ride to the next hostel northbound, shuttle back here in the morning, and then hike back to that same hostel? Or should we bank that someone will cancel or be a no-show and there’ll be an open spot for a bed in the house proper at this hostel? I was able to get my same bed reserved for tomorrow but they only had room for Wedge in the bunkhouse, which he couldn’t do—there was too much dust for his asthma. We were standing at a crossroads with five options and incomplete information.

We decided to hike and think it over. I have great service—there’s a tower nearby—and we knew we could work the problem from the trail, perhaps even throw money at it if necessary. Wedge and I got a lift back to VA-608, where we left off yesterday, and began the five mile ridge hike back to the hostel we’d just left. Along the way we made tentative reservations at the next hostel, then secured a shuttler who could get us there tonight, but it was an open question of whether he could shuttle us back here to resume our hike in the morning. Medium rainstorm coming. We want to get good miles, even in the rain, and then sleep in the dry.

Spring hasn’t so much sprung as erupted. From one day to the next, the hillsides began greening up. Up on the ridge many different species of trees seem to have hit the tipping point and are now moving rapidly toward our shared destination: the kind of summer hike that makes you feel you’re at summer camp on an idle afternoon. Picture yourself in the woods, hanging with new friends, drinking bug juice, and maybe doing some arts and crafts. I never went to summer camp, so my image is entirely idealized. If you’re saying “I went to summer camp and it wasn’t like that at all,” then good for you, Mr. Moneybags.

I can’t remember how this came up, but the other day I was talking about how I dreamed of going to summer camp as a kid, but now recognize that the kind of summer camp young queer me would have needed to thrive didn’t exist then.

Wedge felt a real lift at seeing the green wave now sweeping the land, washing away our woes. It’ll bring new woes: heat, humidity, bugs, including ticks. That’s part of the deal and we will try to accept it with dignity, or as much dignity as one can reasonably expect to have while regularly eating in the dirt and shitting in holes.

We returned to the hostel just before noon. A bed had opened up for Wedge and we elected to stay and hike out from here tomorrow morning. That means no mountain drives for me for a few days! And much more flexibility because we will just walk to the next hostel directly. Wedge and I set about sanitizing the bathroom near our shared room. I cleaned out the filters of the AC and fixed a loud rattle in the unit that comes out whenever the compressor turns on. We worked the problem, in other words. It’s good to have a partner to deliberate with. You end up seeing more options, and making better decisions as a result.

The hostel cooked me a real nice cheeseburger-and-fries lunch. I fell asleep for a while and then caught up on emails. Something of a “party tramily” arrived, and had a big boisterous reunion on the front porch, with several cases of beer. I don’t think it particularly thrilled the hostel folks. There are eight members of this tramily (a portmanteau of “trail” and “family”) and they have their own “tramily bracelets.” I’ve rarely been so torn between admiration and I’m-too-cool-for-that contempt. They seem like good folks though, honestly.

Bonus content, Doug-and-Mom talk. I told her about somebody getting sick, possibly with noro, and she said, without pause, “tell him to be sure to close the toilet lid before flushing.” That had been one of the first things I said to the guy. All gay men eventually become our mothers, but I am not complaining. Love you, Mom.

Bonus bonus content: you can watch Wedge’s account of this and other days on his YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@Wedgehikestheat. To sync up the blog and the videos, just look at the day number. He and I left on the same day, coincidentally, so my day 55 is his day 55 and so on.