Back On The Hike Again: Finding The Unexpected In Daleville

If you are anything like me, you probably just throw some stuff in the suitcase and drive off in your car with no idea of where you are going....just kidding. I'm on googlemaps, I'm on Yelp, I'm checking out the streetviews of places I'm going way beforehand. Why? I guess it's because I can and I'm not fond of unhappy surprises, like bad weather, wrong clothing, running out of food and water. Stuff like that. However, in spite of all of my preparation, Daleville, VA. caught me off guard. This is a little town with a population of about 1500 that just happens to be in a spot where the Appalachian Trail crosses the main road. From my research, this meant there was most likely a grubby gas station and perhaps an old restaurant that served 'country vittles', both straddling a gravel two-lane piece of asphalt where the nearest traffic light couldn't be seen from there. I was pretty far off, and my first indication of that was when Theresa, our shuttle person warned us before dropping us off on the trail, that the road in Daleville was busy and sometimes you had to wait 5 minutes to cross. I laughed at that, thinking these country people have no idea about traffic. Later, I was to learn that comparing my chances of getting eaten by a bear to getting whacked crossing that road was a bet nobody would take. Apparently, Daleville has become a nice place to build your 50 acre dream ranch and it's only 15 minutes to your job in Roanoke, and they pretty much drive like they've got a Starbucks in their lap and less than 5 minutes to make that 15 minute drive. And couple that with the fact that the population of Daleville doesn't count all of those people in those big ranch mansions as part of the city...but they are still driving, shopping and waiting in long drive-through lines at Dunkin Donuts.

At first, I didn't know all of this. I knew that I was happy at HoJo's Hotel, seedy as it was. I just lay there in my bed, watching the rain without getting wet, and wondering how long it would have to rain to fill up that old swimming pool that was just outside my  window. The hotel pool looked like it had been a long time since anyone had even tried to keep it clean, but perhaps it was just early in the season.  I looked around my room and decided it must be pretty early in the season for general maintenance as well. Paul was pacing, because he knew it was getting to be dinnertime and a long hike to the BBQ place in the dark rainy night was out of the question. So it was that we finally took a big chance and darted across the highway to Pizza Hut, one of the numerous places in the world where they had nothing Paul would eat. I convinced him that he could get a salad or something while I chowed down on a large Pepperoni pie. All I kept thinking was that I rarely get to have pizza and this was a very good opportunity. A little aside here about food and hiking. Normal people look at packaged food (maybe) so see how fattening it could be and if it's worth the extra calories. Not hikers, they will say "Only 600 calories! I can't deal with that. Maybe if I have 2 Snickers bars with it, that might work."  I hardly saw anybody hiking that had more extra weight on them than I did. My take is that mountains will do for you what a treadmill won't.

We came into Pizza Hut soaking, narrowly avoiding a couple of cars that seemed to speed up to run down hikers, and found ourselves the lone customers of the night. I was excited, I could eat a whole large pizza, have ice cream after and still be the fittest of my life! And I wasn't going to have to pitch my tent and lay awake all night in my sleeping bag either. We were going to the Outfitter's store in the morning and then back on the trail for 2 more nights, but we had finished the hard stuff and I felt like now was the time to relax and enjoy a night off.

Meanwhile, Paul is explaining to the waiter that he wants whole wheat bread, no tomato, no cheese, and he emphasizes that he doesn't want the cheese and tomato scraped off, it cannot touch the bread ever, and he needs to be sure that the cook changed his gloves before any of this....I'm groaning to myself. Damn, I was sitting in an outhouse with bugs and two pieces of toilet paper yesterday, and he gets to be this picky in a Pizza Hut!?

I was waiting for the waiter to let him have it, but instead I looked up to see our waiter was this skinny young guy with tattoos and giant earrings. He said, "I am a Vegan as well, and I understand perfectly sir. I'll have the cook make yours like he does mine."

We got our pizza and it was fantastic. I had no idea that Pizza Hut made such good pizza, in fact I hardly ever eat there. It might just be that one place in Daleville, or that you need to hike 60 miles to get to it first. In spite of my ambitions, I was only able to eat half of it. Paul was happy also, with what looked like pieces of BBQ on wheat bread. It was the saddest excuse for a pizza I ever saw in my life. I'm really starting to think how much easier it would be if Paul just told people he was Vegan, instead of just being an extremely finicky eater. I mean, he was into this stuff way before it was cool. I can still remember on some surfing trip, while we all waited forever in McDonald's so Paul could have a custom-made hamburger that had never seen mustard. Of course, this was before he knew you could ask them to change their gloves. Sigh, Paul will not tell people this of course, because then he would have to give up Trump, the ultra conservative life, and keep quiet about the whiny tree-huggers out west. Me, I think one good trip to Portland, OR would change his life forever. Hmmm, I wonder if they have any good backpacking adventures in Portland?