Days 154-157

Our four zero days traveling back to Damascus, VA to finish our hike. As of this posting, we have hiked 1,717 miles, we have 467 miles left.

Day 154
We were up and out of the hotel by 830 this morning. We decided we would spend of the morning checking out some of what Hershey has to offer. Luckily we ended up at Hershey World It was free to park so we were all about it. We went on the "factory tour" amusement ride, which was also free. It was cheesy, but we had alot of fun. We shopped around the gift shop for a good while and then were on the road again to Charles Town, WV where we would meet up at Chris and Mallory's for Gavins 1st birthday celebration.
We got into town around noon where we all said bye to Kyle and he headed home. Thanks Kyle! We got all the party stuff loaded in the car and made our way to Chris' parents house for the celebration.
Mallory had a big shebang planned for Gavin with chilli, hotdogs, pie, cake, a hayride, a bonfire, presents, and some gourmet s'mores. A very festive celebration indeed, we had a blast.
Once the party was over and we said our goodbyes, we jumped in the car with Terry and Marcia (Cathrine's parents) to make the 4 hour drive back to their house. Here we will spend tonight and tomorrow night.

Day 155
Today was a lazy day. Cathrine's and I woke up and made breakfast for the 4 of us. We spent the rest of the day doing nothing, it was so nice.
We set up the tent to let it dry and tried to clean the newly forming mold in it. We explored through Marcia and Terry's garage and got a couple of boxes of things to take home with us.
Cathrine and I knocked what we could off our "To Do" list of things we need to get done before we set off to hike again. We had some delicious spaghetti and meatballs and blueberry/cherry pie for dinner.
Tomorrow Marcia is driving us to Greensboro where we will hang out most of tomorrow, all of the next day, and head back to Damascus the following day.

Day 156
We loaded up Marcia's truck with some of Cathrine's things from their garage and threw our packs in, and were ready to hit the road. With a much needed stop at Cook-Out thrown in there, we made it to Greensboro around noon.
We unloaded the truck and said our goodbyes to Marcia. The rest of the day was spent lounging around the house. I finally got to bust out my bass, Thomas got on the drums and we had some much needed jam time.
Cathrine and I got pretty much the rest of our to do list done so we could chill a little more. John, Michael, Aimee, Mia, Wes, and Thomas all came over for a family get together/dinner. Mama made some awesome fried chicken.
Cathrine and I watched "Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever".

Day 157
Cathrine and I did nothing until 12. Both of our cars have been sitting in the driveway so long they wont start, so we were stuck at the house. We had no problem laying around doing nothing until my mom  cam home from babysitting Mia and Wes. She let us borrow her car to go out and do normal stuff. We got lunch at Chickfila and got some pumpkins to carve and just aimlessly drove around town for a while.
We spent about an hour carving our pumpkins before dinner. We met up with everyone at Outback Steakhouse to celebrated Aimee's birthday.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Damascus and begin the last leg of our journey. 467 miles of hiking left to Springer Mountain. We're planning a nice 10 mile day to gear our muscles back up for hiking.