We had just 6,5 miles to hike into Damascus this morning, and mostly downhill. The overnight lows were around 60 degrees and by the time we started hiking it was already a little warm.
We only passed a couple people on the way down, which seemed unusual given the numbers we’ve seen over the past few days.
And by 10:30am we were on the edge of town. Our goals were: find a place to eat and charge electronics for a few hours, resupply for the next two days, and find somewhere to get sandwiches or something to carry out of town for dinner.
We came to Mojo’s as soon as we entered town. It smelled good and had a very hiker oriented menu: big breakfasts, half-pound hamburgers, and such. We went in, ordered, and spent the morning relaxing at our table. The restaurant only had a couple tables in use so they didn’t mind. And when they started getting busy with lunch crowd we were charged up (stomachs, phones, and power banks) and ready to move on.
The trail literally passes through the middle of Damascus which makes it the most convenient resupply stop ever. We picked up the food we needed at the Dollar General then retraced our steps to a convenience store deli to order another afternoon snack and sandwiches to carry out for dinner. We sat for another hour and finished charging during our final town stop.
We passed by an artist’s shop. He made sculpture and interesting bent wood items. Along the backyard fence he had “The Tire” and an amazing price of only $1.00 for two kicks of the tire. There was even a slot to put your money in to save you time if in a hurry.
It wasn’t far to get back to the trail and we started uphill again. In case I haven’t said it out loud yet: we go downhill to towns, rivers, and roads—and back uphill when we leave. The valley is where normal life happens. So, it was almost 3 miles uphill to our campsite, which happened to be right at the Virginia-Tennessee border. By chance, Ryan’s hammock was in Tennessee and mine was still in Virginia…so we spent the night in different states.
And here are some of the other things we found interesting along the trail today.
