Howard Johnsons foot spa
I had been alone pretty much since Pearisburg, save for slacking with roomie Mike. Met up with a lot of folks at the Cloverdale VA HoJos. Sweet Mags and I hung out poolside. Finally reading Alice in Wonderland, having carried it for hundreds of miles. I had her film -- needed to deliver. DreamCatcher was getting prepped to get off trail for a wedding somewhere. She was to fly out of Roanoke. Magoo and High Spirits was around. In the motel across the street, Seuss and Shirt were going to crash before heading further north.
The story goes that late this night, a bunch of the party crowd from Damascus knocked on Seuss' door to go bar-hop. Seuss put it succinctly: 'The party ended at Trail Days, fellas. Now, we're HIKING.'
While it was fun to gain a sense of community and party down south, those of us still on trail were changing yet again. We'd made it to the Old Dominion and out of Damascus, and our perspective on what the hike was continued to evolve. It was the job now, and those of us left took it a good deal more seriously. Save for any unexpected injury, the hike now was much more an internal mental challenge than a physical one.