Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 70, Wednesday, 5/25 – Half Time, Birthday Sandwich, and I went to a chic coffee shop for breakfast this morning. Farmhaus had great coffee, great breakfast sandwiches, and great ambiance.

I then set up some wet gear to dry out, and headed over to the post office with Genie and Splitzy. I mailed home the miscellaneous gear that I hadn’t been using.

Since I signed up for this marathon on October 2nd, I decided to go for a run with Half Time to see where I’m at. We ran 1.5 miles over to the outfitter. We shopped around there and hung out for a bit. We then ran another 5.5 miles around Waynesboro. I ran the first section at 8:30 pace and the second section at 9:30 pace. Well, I’ve concluded that the thru hike is not going to prepare me for the marathon. I crack myself up. I guess I’m going to be running more often now!

Half Time, Birthday Sandwich, and I then went out for lunch. We were on our way over to a taco food truck when we walked past a hot dog restaurant. Half Time wanted a hot dog so we stopped in and got some food there. We then walked past a pizza by the slice restaurant. At this time we were being ridiculous just to be ridiculous. We stopped in for a gigantic slice of pizza. Since we committed to the food truck, we then walked over and got a quesadilla. I was stuffed. No regrets.

When we got back to the hotel, we were hanging out with Genie, Splitzy, and Broadway. The door was open and we heard Shade, 100 Grand, Jeff, and Claus all walk by! They just hiked in and are coincidentally all staying next door to us. Naturally, we left open the door between the two hotel rooms.

Half Time, Birthday Sandwich, and I then went back to the pizza shop for another slice. On the way, we came across live music in the street. I ran into Kodak and Great Dane and caught up with them for a minute. In the conversation, I met Meghan who offered to give us a ride to the trail tomorrow morning at 7:30am!

After chatting for a bit, I went to the pizza shop. I ordered too late; they had ran out of pizza. Half Time and Birthday Sandwich shared half a slice with me. I was still full from earlier, so even half a slice was too much.

We then headed back to the live music. We hung out until it ended, which was only a few more songs. The last song was a cover of the Jungle Book song, “I wanna be like you.” It was a cool event, there were lots of locals enjoying the music.

Back at the hotel, Dogfish called me out of the blue at 9:00pm. She told me she had made pork dumplings for all of us. What an awesome person.

Although Dogfish has lived in the states for 14 years, she’s originally from Chengdu China. It was cool to tell her that my brother Martin lived there for 10+ years.