Miles: 624.9 | A frustrating, anxiety-inducing taxi saga kicks off the day, but things turn around once we reach Blacksburg. Lunch with Aunt Marci and Uncle Paul feels grounding and generous, and shoe shopping—while not perfect—brings much-needed relief and fresh socks. Back at Woods Hole, the pace slows: smoothies, naps, blogging, new trail friends, cats, dogs, and a nourishing communal dinner. The day ends quietly in the bunks, tired but steadier, with plans to take things a little gentler tomorrow.
We woke up around 8am and packed up the Safari tent. We left our packs at the bunk house and waited for the 9am taxi to Blacksburg (where we would be meeting Aunt Marci for lunch and shoe shopping) I had scheduled. When 9:15 rolled around and the taxi hadn’t shown up yet I got a little annoyed. I was also a bit hangry, to be honest...
I called the company I had made an appointment with and they said no one had made any appointments with them. Confused, I told them I’d made the appointment with a woman the day before. They said the only woman who works for them was the owner’s fiancé and that she hadn’t worked the day before. They didn’t apologize or make an offer to pick me up.
My anger grew. Knowing there were two taxi companies in Blacksburg I called the other one. They sent someone right away and said it would be $50. A good deal since Woods Hole Hostel was about 15 miles outside of Pearisburg, the nearest town, and that was 25 miles from Blacksburg, the town we needed to get to. Satisfied with the deal I doubled their estimated time of arrival, knowing they might have miscalculated how far out we were.
We waited. And waited. 45 minutes went by, they had estimated 20 minutes. I called and the man at the company said, “Oh sorry, we’re about halfway there. It was further than we thought.” We waited another 30 minutes and finally someone in a 2002 Chrysler Town and Country pulled into the hostel driveway.
The guy driving was yelling at someone over the phone. “You really fucked this one up, man! This is way out there! You’re gonna lose money on this! We need to charge more!” I stood in the open doorway of the back of the minivan listening. He kept hitting the steering wheel and yelling.
When he finally hung up the phone I asked if we were still being charged the same price that we had agreed upon earlier. He said he didn’t know. I told him I was sorry that he came all the way out there but if we weren’t paying $50 I didn’t want to leave with him, knowing I may be able to get a shuttle (I only didn’t take a shuttle because they couldn’t do 9am and it was $70 instead...).
He rolled his eyes and said get in, he’ll do $50. We got in and buckled up. He pulled out of the gravel driveway in reverse faster than he probably should have. Down the gravel country road that curved through rural farms he pushed 55-60mph consistently. Miles and I held on for dear life. We rode in silence to town.
Once in Pearisburg, he got onto the highway to Blacksburg and continued to speed, driving with barely one hand on the wheel. His phone constantly rang some loud country song. He yelled with road rage and bullied people out of the left lane. When we finally (at 11am) got to Blacksburg I was nauseous and so anxious.
I knew that our driver was probably in for a bad day and he did go out of the way to come get us. I was planning on tripping him anyway but I didn’t have a lot of cash on me. I gave him what I had and he was suddenly super nice. We got out of the van and went to the restaurant’s patio to meet my aunt.
We had a great lunch with Aunt Marci, Uncle Paul, and their dog Gus Gus. After lunch (nachos, 3 cups of coffee for Miles and I, beers for Uncle Paul, and a crab club sandwich) we went to the shopping plaza and headed to the running store first. I tried on a few pairs of Brooks but they weren’t what I was looking for.
We tried an outdoor store a few shops down but they didn’t have my size in the Solomons I wanted. In reality, the Solomons were the closest I was going to get to the shoes I was currently in but they didn’t have my size. The brooks weren’t really what I wanted but I’d worn the brand before and figured they’d work. We picked up a pair of Brooks, 2 pairs of Darn Tough socks, and some Gu energy gels.
Aunt Marci and Uncle Paul didn’t have a car that would fit all of us so they paid for a taxi for us to get back. We found out Blacksburg had Lyft so we called a Lyft. They dropped us off at the Starbucks nearby and we said goodbye. Miles and I indulged in some coffee while we waited for our Lyft.
Our Lyft driver ended up being VERY nice. He had no idea the trail was so close by or that the hostel we were staying at even existed! We had a great conversation with him on the car ride. We arrived back at the hostel around 2pm.
I got a smoothie from the kitchen and Miles took a nap. I blogged for a while and talked to a fellow hiker who was going southbound: Cougar. She was really cool and had already hiked the PCT. We also patted the cats and dogs they had:
We had dinner up at the main house with the other hikers. Neville, the hostel owner, and Blue, a worker, made dinner. It was great! Salad, egg salad, homemade bread, rice dishes, soup, and ice cream, all local and fresh.
After dinner I volunteered with some other hikers to clean up in the kitchen and scoop ice cream. I finally figured out who had seen me during the ‘naked incident’. His name was Fog. I didn’t really catch who else saw because when he started telling the story the room exploded in hilarious laughter. My face flushed. It was kind of funny because of its ridiculousness the first time he told it. But when he had told it 3 times because people were in and out of the kitchen it got old. Neville put a stop to it, thankfully. The attention was a bit much.
After dinner we went to bed early in our bunks. We realized we would be passing another very cool hostel the next day. We had really pushed ourselves this week so we decided to stay at that hostel, too. We also needed to resupply still.
