TRAIL DAYS 2017 // DAY 1

And I'm finally here to share the start of a slew of life updates. Mid-May up until the past week have been busy and amazing and I'm finally getting a little time to sit, go through pictures, and write a little something to remember them by. Slowly but surely I'll get through these ;)

The weekend after going to New York for Mother's Day, I went to Virginia for Trail Days! Trail Days is an Appalachian Trail festival held in Damascus, VA every year. There are hiker workshops, carnival and art fair sorts of things for townies, hiker feeds for current thru-hikers, camping and bonfires and a hiker parade and other activities for current and former thru-hikers, and it's so great to have a reunion of sorts.

When a few members of my final trail family, whom I summited Katahdin with last August, mentioned they were going to go back to Damascus for Trail Days this year, I hemmed and hawed and didn't know if I'd be able to get work off, but the more I thought about it, I knew I had to go, and yeah, it was so good. I knew it would be, but I didn't know how much it would re-energize me. Being with other Hiker Trash for a weekend and being called by my trail name, "Olive Oil", made my heart so happy.

Here's Day 1 of 3...


Early on the Friday morning of Trail Days, I flew out of Chicago. Yay 4:00 am wake ups. Yay 6:00 am flights...


The flight apparently experienced lots of turbulence, but I had three seats to myself and fell asleep right when we took off so never noticed. Lovely flight, if you ask me.


I flew into Charlotte, NC because that was the closest big city to Damascus. It's still nearly a 3 hour drive from Charlotte to Damascus though. When I arrived to Charlotte, I rented my first car ever!! Of all the things I've done recently that have scared me and made me feel (possibly) like an adult, renting a car and getting myself to Damascus in one piece is definitely one of them.



I made it to Damascus just after noon and met up with my friends Splinter and Boyardee as well as a friend of theirs they met before I knew them on the trail named 11:30. They had already ordered Yuengling's and I ordered one to follow while trying to figure out a vegetarian option. We all caught up about our off-trail lives, reminisced about our on-trail lives, and looked forward to all the coming events of the weekend.



After lunch and a quick jaunt around town, we bought a ton of beer, set up our tents, and caught up some more, just sitting on the ground as we once did upon arriving into camp after long days of hiking. Our friend Pockets soon showed up, and soon I found out that Waterfall would be showing up at night. I had texted him a week earlier and he was unsure about if he'd be able to get off work, but apparently he had told Boyardee in the middle of the week that he'd be coming, and Boyardee decided to leave it as a surprise for the rest of us. Ahh!

As we hung around camp, took in the sights, and we saw so many familiar faces, but also new faces too. That's the great thing about hikers. People come and go and you sit at camp and talk to everyone like you've known them forever. Because of this, "Hiker Time" is a thing. Like I knew Boyardee and Splinter for 2.5 months on the trail, but in hiker time that's like 5 years. It's also why when a trail couple gets engaged after dating for 2 months, it doesn't seem that crazy, even though conventional wisdom would tell you to think otherwise.


I met the guy on the right I met super briefly last year, at Trail Days I think. The girl on the right I'd never met because she's a current section hiker (someone who hikes sections instead of straight thru), but she kept saying "absofruitly" and it was so funny! That's really all I wanted to say about this pic haha.







This is a little more of our afternoon. We walked around Tent City, where everyone sets up their tents, met dogs, and just talked and had beers with other hikers. It felt so good to feel so at home.