Days 1-6

Day 1
I found my wallet! After worrying for so long, I finally got ahold of Derricks mom and she said she found it in her car! So that was a major stress of the trip lifted.
Today we woke up at 8am got everything packed, and were out of tent city by 9:15. We were meeting Derrick's mother (who was en route to drop off my wallet), Thomas (who was meeting up with us to hike the first few days), and Zack and Amanda at the town library at 10am.
Zack and Amanda run a not for profit called "More Hearts Than Scars" (http://www.moreheartthanscars.org). They were were nice people who do great things and it also doesn't hurt that they gave Cathrine and I some free socks. Derrick is symbolically hiking the trail for one of their friends who recently died and it was his dream to thru hike, despite having one leg. So we took pictures and all that stuff and after waiting a little bit for Thomas to arrive, we were so ready to begin our walk and finally hit the trail by noon.
We hiked about 9 miles to the "Saunders Shelter", like the majority of shelters on the AT, its a 3 sided structure with a roof. Because Im carrying a 4lb tent, were gonna use the tent as much as possible so that my back problems later in life aren't for nothing.
Today was beautiful. The views, the leaves on the trees, the weather, everything. We went over 2 good sized mountains with n o problem, everyone was feeling good. The trail ran along a beautiful stream and the Virginia Creeper for a while and after a 2 mile climb with pretty good grade we were at the shelter before we knew it. It was nice to have Thomas hiking with us.

Day 2
Today Cathrine, Derrick , and I were up at about 6:30 and started getting ready for the day. Our sleep schedules seem to be adjusting to the sun rise/set because I don't think Ive ever woke up that early feeling so refreshed.
So we're all ready to go by 9 and we realize that Thomas isn't.. He isn't even awake. So I woke him up and we were on the trail by 10:30 or 11. Right before we left, a writer for a Japanese magazine, "Wilderness", interviewed Cathrine for a story he is writing. HE took pictures of her and her gear, it was pretty cool.
Today was a rough day, we ended up hiking the 6.4 miles to the Lost Mountain Shelter, which was moderate, had lunch there, and all felt good enough to push another 6 miles out to a camping area of the White Top Mountain summit. White Top Mountain has the second highest elevation in Virginia  (next to Mt Rogers which we'll be hiking over tomorrow) so you can imagine that the hike up White Top was pretty strenuous. 4 miles of uphill to 5100ft.
We all got to the camp area by about 6pm and had enough time to chill, eat, and go watch a beautiful sunset from on of the highest points in VA. Today provided us with some of the best views I have ever seen in my life.
So not, were laying in the tent as the temperature quickly drops. We hope to get a good nights rest for tomorrow when we hike over Mt Rogers and relax for the rest of the day at Thomas Knob Shelter (which is right off the summit of Mt Rogers). Were hoping for another day of good weather.
..I guess it's blister popping time.

Day 3
I didn't get as cold as I though I would last night, being on top of a mountain and not having a sleeping bag. I was actually quite toasty without even having to use my space blanket. Cathrine and I both slept like rocks and woke up at about 8Am. We were ready to start our day pretty quickly, we're starting to find our rhythm of packing and unpacking, setting up the tent and taking it down.
We were ready to go at about 9am, so we said our goodbyes to Thomas who was going to start his journey back to Damascus by himself. All three of us were sad to see him leave, it was good to have him around. He plans to meet up with us again in a month or so, I hope it all works out.
Today we hiked 6.7 miles to Thomas Knob, it was a beautiful hike. Rain was on the verge, but it never came. As soon as we got to Thomas Knob at about 2pm the sun came out and it began to really heat up, which surprised me because our elevation was so high. On the way there we had a deer walk right in front of us, I got some good photos of it.
At the shelter, we had plenty of time to lay out and relax and talk to/watch all the people coming past the shelter on their way to their resting spot. Cathrine and I went on a walk up to the summit of Mt Rogers, it was a mile round trip, but despite what others said, it was well worth the walk. There weren't any views as far as the landscape goes, but we thought the vibe and uniqueness of the forest up top was beautiful in itself.
Thomas knob is a well made 2 story shelter, one of the best on the trail. We got a spot upstairs where it looks like we'll be sharing with quite a few other people for the night.

Day 4
Last night it was hard to sleep with all the people snoring, it was a full shelter and Im sure Cathrine and I were the last ones to fall asleep. It was very windy up on Thomas Knob, Id guess the wind gusts were up to almost 50mph. The whole day today was very windy walking through Grayson Highlands State Park and onward to the Old Orchard Shelter.
Grayson Highland is an awesome place that I go to often and it's known for the wild ponies that roam around. Unfortunately, we only saw one pony today from far away, it is a shame because everyone else we talked to had a herd of them walk right past.
Today was another gorgeous day which is part of the reason why the 11 miles we hiked today went by so fast. the other reason is probably because Cathrine (who is now going by her trail name "Special Needs") has gone into beast mode and is setting a pace that Derrick and I both are struggling to match. I think she is thriving on the fact that she was greatly underestimated in a complete thru hike.
We got to Old Orchard at about 2pm where Cathrine and I set up our tent in a nice shady grass area next  to a fire pit all to ourselves and just laid down and relaxed for about an hour.
Then I got up, made a fire, and made dinner. Cathrine and I have a system where we both make a separate dish and come together and share so neither of us have to eat a whole bag of pasta sides or mashed potatoes and we can get some variety in our diet.
Now we're chillin by the fire with a pretty cool guy who is doing the same flip-flop thru hike we are. We're been unintentionally hiking and staying with him for the past 3 days. He is a photographer and is carrying his big 3lb camera all the way across the Appalachian Mountains and is using his collapsed tripod as a walking stick. He took some cool pictures of Cathrine, Derick and I and is soon going to put a lot of his photos on his facebook.com- "Footpath Photography" or "Neal (or Neil, maybe)Wright", one or the other
We'll probably get in bed soon, we're planning a 14 mile day tomorrow over 2 pretty good inclines to Trimpi Shelter. So we've loaded up on soapy noodles from the depths of my mothers laundry room, mashed potatoes, and rice ready to hike on tomorrow.

Day 5
Last night a big storm ended up coming through. It rained heavily for about 2 hours. It was during this storm that Cathrine and I discovered that our tent leaks through the fly, so we spent some of the night fighting drips and puddles of water in our beds. We are planning on catching a shuttle in Marion VA tomorrow to hang out at a hiker festival that the town is hosting, so I'll probably call Northface about sending me a new tent fly when we get there. If that doesn't work out, we're gonna just invest in a new, LIGHTER, tent.
We're beat after hiking 14 miles today, our longest day yet. We got to camp at about 5pm, set up the tent, and made dinner. While we were eating, the Japanese magazine writer who interviewed Cathrine days earlier was hanging out with us and Cathrine asked him to play the guitar looking instrument he was carrying on his pack. He told me it was kind of like a Japanese banjo and played and sang a song on it. When he was done he insisted that I play it, so I fiddled as much as I could on it and he took pictures of me playing it. Maybe I'll get a spot in the magazine story!
Tomorrow we plan to hike 11 miles to Partnership Shelter and get there by 2:30 so we can catch the .50 shuttle into Marion. In town we plan to resupply on food, wash our clothes, and take showers, and eat those spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy's that Cathrine and I have been talking so much about. We will probably take a zero day, Saturday, which means no hiking and just kind of relax and re-coup. Who knows, maybe Cathrine will let me take her to the movies.

Day 6
Today we left camp at about 8:30 and hiked almost 11 miles to Partnership, it was a relatively uneventful hike.
We got to the shelter by 12:30 and headed over the Mount Rogers ranger station near by to wait on the 2:30 shuttle to take us into Marion.
While we were waiting, Cathrine and I sat and talked with Dan (who also goes by his trail name Nepal) for a while. Dan is a very nice guy that we met on our first day and have been running into ever since. He's from California, about in his 50's , and spends his time on awesome adventures all over the world. I also bought a wildflower ID book to help Cathrine and I from having to keep guessing which flowers are which.
Once the shuttle bus finally came, all 21 hikers waiting crammed into the stinky, smelly bus and we made our way to Marion.
Originally, we planned to tent camp at the hiker festival area, but after checking out the site, we decided against it (for a lot of reasons: like the was no one there, except for sketchies and the camping area was so far from everything like the free showers, food lion, Laundromat, and the library. Basically it was on the outskirts of town. So I ended up calling the Econolodge for a room for the 3 of us. When we got to Econolodge they said I hadn't made a reservation there- turns out I had called the Econolodge in Marion, Illinois..oops. We got a room, unpacked our crap, got together our dirty clothes to take down to the Laundromat, and stopped by Wendy's on the way down to clean our clothes. We ran into Dan on the sidewalk on the way there and Cathrine and I ate dinner with him and Derrick went to the all you can eat KFC.
After we were done eating we met up with Nick Brown who made a surprise visit to come spend his memorial day weekend hiking with us. he was being shuttled by Kekunui and Ariel and it was very good to see them too. He got dropped off and we made our way to the Laundromat and washed our clothes. On our way back to the hotel at about 7pm we were getting sleepy because that's about our bedtime now, we got some bean burritos at Taco Bell. Back at the hotel, we laid out our stuff to see what all we need to get in town... food, etc. And Nick and I looked at the map to see what kind of ground we could cover while he's with us (he's getting picked up Monday) so we want to make sure his trip up here is well worth it. He wasn't expecting us to be in town this weekend and we certainly weren't expecting him but we're sure happy he's here.
Tomorrow we plan to get more food, I', going to try to make it to the library to update my blog, and Cathrine and I are going to try our hardest to get a new tent. Later in the afternoon we will probably get a ride back to the trail and sleep at Partnership Shelter and start back up on Sunday.