Daleville, Va.

I have a bling new HTC thunderbolt phone now, thanks to my parents. I saw a Verizon store yesterday and had to update my old pre paid phone. It will ne nice now to update more often.

I made it to Daleville,VA. Yesterday, "Ray day." It was a goal, to make it to 702 by this important day on the PCT. The day Ray Marine says you should get to the Sierra Nevada range on the Pacific Crest Trail. Well I made it to 719. Now I'm just lingering on the town vortex.

My parents set me up with a new phone yesterday too which was really awesome. I needed internet access and a smart phone for school, I'm taking three credits this summer. Also with this unlimited 4G data plan, I can update this blog more, and have better service in case of an emergency. Watching live radar on weather.com will be neat too.

The last few days have been great on the trail. There have been a few showers, but they didn't last long. I have rocked the miles, pulling a near 31 mile day, and the rest, since I last posted, were in the mid to upper twenties.

The landscape has been changing in my northeastern sauntering across Virginia too. Further south the land was isolated mountains with ridges and hills. Now the land is more akin to the basin and range of Nevada. There are long ranges running dozens of miles with long valley/ basins in between. The ranges traversed by us Appalachian trail hikers are home to the bear and the captors that circle the sky. The basins are lined with pastureland. The occasional civil war era town brakes the distance between cow pasture. Many protestant and Baptist churches serve the faithful folds between the rocky ridges which are often USDA forest service wilderness.

Virginia itself is different ad far as the town people go. Perhaps I am wrong to include this in a description, but the people are prettier here. The day hikers on the trail look and smell more civilized. Farther south it seemed as if people just didn't care about there appearance. Now people are fit and trim. The fragrant smells of bath soap can be sensed before a day hikers is seen, and when they do appear, they are nicely dressed, for the woods.

I like the AT. The trail is just cool. It is sad to see many hikers skipping miles already though. There is no need to avoid snow storms or the like, just an overwhelming distance to Katadin induces the skips. I am a purest here. I aim to do every mile of the Appalachian trail without skipping in one summer. When I finish I will be proud of my accomplishment.