Shenandoah, Day 2

AM
It's about 1/4 of 8, so that would be about 12 hours of sleep, if I had slept the whole way through. A couple of visiters woke me up several time though.

It's raining pretty hard now. So my choices are to stay here, run over to the shelter (20 ft away), or just pack up & go. Clearly if I stay, I won't make the entire length of the trail. I think I'll wait an hour, then decide.

Shoulders are the only thing that are still sore.

LATER
It's still raining. Unless it clears up today, I'll stay here another night. Rain or shine I'm leaving tomorrow. Now I'll have to figure our where to pick up my car.

PM
Add a squirrel to the wildlife count.

It's 5:30 and I've already stopped. In fact, I stopped about 4. When I finally got out of the tent this morning just before noon, it was barely raining, if it all. I decided it was good enough. It was actually, but then it did start raining, and it got harder. I got cold and very wet so I stopped. Actually, I tried to hitch hike to the nearest cabin. Failed. I guess it was just as well though, because the cabin is about 30 miles away, not 12 like I though.

So I set up my tent, crawled out of my wet clothes and into my sleeping bag. I have stopped shivering, which is good. My left shoulder is killing me.

I am about 20 ft from Skyline Drive, which is most definitely a violation, but if a ranger stops by to fine me, he better well take me somewhere where I can rent a room.

My food and pack are about 2 ft in front of me, but unless it stops raining, I am not going out there. I actually hope it continues to rain, so that nobody will get hungry enough to eat it.

The one plus today, I found and ate 2 blueberries. They were very good.

I'm about 7 miles short of my goal today, and another 7 from where I can dry all my clothes. The nearest hotel is 25 miles after that. It looks like I basically have to make it to Loft Mtn, where I can either dry my stuff, or call the 'rents. We'll have to see what the weather and my shoulder are like tomorrow.

Cars, wind & rain all sounds the same. It's very hard to tell which is actually happening or coming.

I've got about 2 more hours of daylight, and then about 12 of night.

I guess I'll read some more now, and try to relax my shoulder.