START TIME: 5:15 AM 
END TIME: 9:25 PM
I’m really proud of Jen for completing another 50-mile day. In 2008, she did 65 miles on her last full day, but didn’t have another one above 47. This time, I think she’s completed eight.
After she set off from the Senator Shumate Bridge at 5:15, I went back to the hotel for another hour of sleep. At around 7 o’clock, Matt and Lily ran to Hardee’s for some breakfast sandwiches while I cleaned out Jen’s water bottles.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but Jen’s water bottles get nasty. After a few hours in the heat, the juice ferments and has a real kick to it.
We were supposed to meet Jen 10.9 miles in at Sugar Run Gap but I went to Big Horse Gap instead, which was 1.6 miles south. It worked out fine, though. Jen kept hiking like she was supposed to. Matt had run in to meet her and they ran into each other somewhere in the middle.
They took a short break at Big Horse Gap, enough time for Jen to wolf down a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and chug some chocolate milk, then they headed out for the next 12.3-mile stretch. I should mention that Uwharrie did not accompany them on this first stretch. She was noticeably depressed hanging out with Lily and me, but she did get to run quite a few miles later in the day.
Jen and Matt arrived at VA 606 at 1:20 and took another 20-minute break before heading toward Lickskillet Hollow (probably my favorite road crossing name so far). Jen was feeling really sleepy when she got there. She thought maybe it was because she’d eaten a second bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit at the last road crossing, and that’s a little heavier than what she normally eats for lunch.
At any rate, she was wide awake by the time she reached the next road crossing, VA 611, because the carcass of a deer was rotting about ten feet from the road and the trail and was emitting the most heinous stench imaginable. It was so bad that Lily drove her car 50 yards past the road crossing to escape it. So bad that Jen and Matt said they could smell it hundreds of yards away.
When they left for the second to last stretch of the day—8.2 miles to VA 612 near I-77—Lily and I headed into Bland (that’s right, Bland), Virginia, to go grocery shopping. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that the only grocery store in town, the one I’d visited during Jen’s 2008 hike, had closed down.
And instead of driving 20 miles to the nearest grocery store in Wytheville, we decided to try Dollar General instead.
I don’t know how many of you have been to Dollar General recently, but it was actually the perfect place for me to re-supply because it has just about everything except fresh produce, and Jen and I practically took an oath to eat nothing but processed foods for the duration of the trip. I can picture Jen’s mom, and her Aunt Vee, and cousin Tori rolling their eyes right now. But the sad truth is, fruits and vegetables take too much time and energy to chew. They have a lot of sugar but not enough calories, so they’re kind of a waste of time on a hike like this. I’ve been trying to eat a banana or apple or something healthy every day. But the only fruit that Jen’s gotten is from fruit smoothies and the only vegetables she’s gotten are in potato chips.
When Lily and I arrived at VA 612, we couldn’t believe what we found. Or rather smelled: another dead animal. We thought the first one had been a coincidence, but after the second one, we decided someone around here didn’t like thru-hikers.
Jen, Matt, and Uwharrie arrived at VA 612 around 7:30, and I got to do a .8-mile road walk over I-77 with Jen. At US 52, Matt and Uwharrie rejoined her and the three of them cranked out the last 7.7 miles to VA 615 in about two hours and fifteen minutes. We found a couple of great campsites by the river. Jen was able to eat her Mountain House, take her usual Wet Wipe bath, and hit the sack by 10:15 or so.
We want to give a BIG shout out to uber-hiker Matt Kirk—and another BIG shout out to his wife Lily—for their willingness to join us for a couple of days on the tail end of their vacation to West Virginia. Matt helped Jen out a lot, especially that first day into Pearisburg. And I really enjoyed hanging out with Lily, even if we were often surrounded by the rotting flesh of dead animals.