Our First Zero Day, Damascus Again!

Hello readers! Today is day 38 of our adventure and I'm proud to say that we're NOT hiking today. We seem to be the only ones at this point who have not taken a day off. Apparently that's crazy, but we've just been pushing through, and now we're taking a well deserved day off.

We're in Damascus, VA (yes VA, our 4th state), a place that I came through when I biked across the US. It's very cool to be here again, on a different trip. We stayed at the same hostel I stayed at with Dugg and Sonny 2 years back. Today we are relaxing, and actually renting mountain bikes and riding the Creeper Trail. I think we are the only people who still put miles in even on our "day off", albeit on wheels instead of boots.

We are both feeling pretty good, legs are strong, feet and knees could definitely use a break right now though. We have hiked a little bit over 464 miles so far. At about 500 miles, that's about a quarter of the entire AT. It's amazing because it doesn't quite seem like it's been that long, but man it flies. We've met a lot of hikers, heard some ridiculous stories, and received some amazing trail magic (free food) from people. I get so bottle necked when we sit down to update the blog, because we have such a long time in between computer stops. So I'm often trying to figure out which story to tell. I think I'll do a quick jaunt about our Dog that we acquired, for one day (thankfully).

Basically, I love dogs, I came onto the trail talking to Ash about how awesome it would be to just acquire a trail dog (trust me it happens) and have a loyal hound. Well, a couple of days ago, we see two of our friends hike by our campsite in the morning, and there is a little dog with them, which neither of them own. We asked "whose dog is that?" and they reply "it just started following us." I thought this was interesting, and that it would probably run back down the trail to its owner shortly. Well, later in the day, we catch up with a hiker Sherpa (she had the name first, hence why I changed mine). She tells us the dog just started following her near the lake miles back, and just kept following her. I take a look at the dog, excited at the prospect, but I'm sadly disappointed. I read a while back: 'the closer to a wolf the dog is, the better it will be on the trail'. Well, this thing was like a Dachshund/collie mix, long, short, and long hair that picked up pounds of leaves. Pretty much, this thing was as far away fro ma wolf, and as close to a guinea pig as a dog can get. Well to my chagrin, this little thing follows US when we leave Sherpa after lunch. Oh No. Now we can't really leave it, but this thing would NEVER make it to Maine. My dream of a rugged beefy German Shepherd following me and rescuing me from bear attacks was fading fast. This little thing would not eat, but was amazingly agile and well trail mannered. But I still did not want her. We ended up getting a cell phone from a hiker and calling the rabies hotline on her collar, but all they could tell us based on her ID number was that Mark was her owner, and his phone number was disconnected. Great, obviously this poor little over grown hamster had been dumped and left to the wild, and was now following whatever poor hiker crossed her path. She was a sweet dog, and that's about it. We decided we would take her to Damascus (another 30 miles from where we were) and call animal control to come take her. So she slept with us in the shelter that night to keep out of a storm, but in the morning she promptly left with yet a different hiker. Well, she was off our hands now, but man were we surprised when we see her coming back southbound with 4 trail runners. Hahahaha this thing was ridiculous. So Clifton, a local, tells us he sees this kind of thing all the time, and takes her back to his truck and assures us he'll take care of her until he finds out where she belongs, if not he'll have to give her to the pound after a bit. So it was a mediocre end to this little dog's story for us. We hope someone will take her, because honestly she was a sweet dog, but she did not belong in the woods hiking to Maine. I guess from now on, I'll think a bit more about acquiring a trail dog, I just hope that rugged tough husky comes wandering our way, and that it will be a different experience than toting a huge Furby down the trail.

-Cole Bear aka Crazy Goose out