Today was a day of transition as we said goodbye to Shenandoah and positioned ourselves to end our long stay in Virginia by the end of the week. We also transitioned between local friends willing to host and support us during this leg of the journey. Unfortunately, it appears the temperature is also making a quick transition from pleasant to downright hot! We started the day in the fog but as we drove back to Jenkins Gap, we broke above the clouds, with views of the lowlands both east and west looking like they were filled with cotton. In spite of our slowness at getting our gear organized and packed, Martha had us back hiking by 8:30 a.m.

The rocks in/on the trail were all wet and slippery from last night’s rain, and we tried to be both slow and careful at the start.

[Maybe it is because we’re getting closer to Washington and maybe because we just passed a significant anniversary of the Watergate break-in, but somewhere between 3 and 5:00 a.m. my iPhone lost about 400 words of pithy prose – the rest of this day’s report! It just disappeared! With the forecast for 95° today, I’m tempted to take a zero and see if I can reconstruct it. But although the dogs bark, the caravan must move on, and I’ll (try to) try to come back and fix this later… -N]