ATC Trail Days 2008

On Thursday the 15th, Randy and I drove south to Harrisburg PA to meet my Tiger Bomber hiking friend Susan and her husband George. We stayed overnight with them and then we all piled into thier big truck and headed to Damascus VA to attend the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Trail Days. This is a big hiker festival held by Damascus cause the AT runs right thru the middle of town and this is the time of year the thru hikers are coming thru. Anyway. We got there about 3pm and set up our tents in the backyard of a B&B. Lots and lots of tents in all the neighboring yards too. We settled in, had dinner at a local pizzaria with other Tiger Bombers (Wendy and Denny and after dinner, sat around the backyard picnic table having drinks and talking about the trail. I reconnected with several of the hikers I met in April starting at Springer Mtn. I also met several others that Susan met while she was out for 30 days.

On Saturday Randy and I explored the town. We headed out to tent city, the location where most of the hikers were tenting to see the gear vendors out there. Tent city is party central, the reason we all decided to tent in town. Then Randy and I walked back to the park, at the other end of Damascus to see the rest of the vendors. We bought a few gifts for people and had a good lunch. At 2pm the Hiker Parade took place. It's traditional for hikers and spectators to squirt each other with water from squirt guns and water balloons. Strange dress on the part of the hikers is also traditional. Randy got some good pictures. We sat around the tent the rest of the afternoon chit chatting with all the hikers and at dinner walked down to the park and got some BBQ for dinner from one of the vendors. Again on Saturday night, lots of talk around the picnic table.

On Sunday AM, we packed up and headed back to PA and got to Susan's about 6:30pm. While on the ride, George suggested "Klik" for Randy's trailname. We tried it out all day. We spent the night and got headed out to NY about 8am. On the drive, Randy decided to use "Popcorn" instead of "Klik" for his trail name. I like Klik better but Popcorn is good too. We got home about 2:30pm.