Partnership and Pizza

10-7-09 day 125
start: Rural Retreat Historical Society Hostel, VA
end: Partnership Shelter, VA
daily mileage: 11.6
total mileage: 1651.6

We both slept in and woke up to find Icarus downstairs watching Gladiator. Disney and I prepared breakfast and ate while fast forwarding to all the good parts. We only had 11 miles to got today so after the Gladiator highlight reel we also watched Spiderman. We cleaned the place up and got a ride from Karen, the lady who lives next door. She was great to go out of her way to help us out. The trail picked up across the street from an Exxon station, and the lady inside told us Quidam had been through earlier. She said they fed him well, and got him hooked up with a sleeping bag, so that's good.

We got started around 2:30 and it was a fantastic day. At the trial head we met Star Trek and his mom Star Dust. She'll be hiking with him for a couple days but they are staying in town tonight. Just down the trial a piece from the Exxon is the settlers museum, and while we were in a bit of a hurry because it was late we did make time to check out the 1890's school house. On the wall were posted rules for teachers and students that supposedly abided by at the time. "One lash for every foot climbed into a tree above 3 feet" and "3 lashes for drinking spirituous liquor at school". Awesome.

We got into the Partnership Shelter around six. It is right next to the road and run by the wilderness lodge next door. Our guidebook promised hot showers but we were disappointed to discover the hot part was turned off for the season. We did however order pizza. The pizza place had a two for one deal and we were ordering for three people. It boiled down to paying $12 for 2, $24 for 3, or $24 for 4. So we got 4 pizzas, naturally. Icarus, No Money, and a new guy 'Root Beer Float' showed up late and we sold them our extra pizza before they went ahead and ordered their own. We stayed up in the loft for a while chatting before we went to bed. We're happy to see No money caught back up with us.