So day 56 was pretty uneventful as I had to take a day off for a sick day! We were able to sit at Dutch Haus and let me recover and I was finally able to hold down food, so it made me a little stronger. By early afternoon, Snagglefoot and Dances with Flies caught up to us with Q-tip, so it was nice to have some more of the gang back together again! I was finally able to eat all the delicious food they offered there, so I took advantage of that. We pretty much sat around all day so I could regain my strength. We woke up on day 57 at 3 a.m. to Nokey… he had caught my virus and was now sick. He insisted we would be hiking out that day, however. After trying to get him out of bed for over two hours, he finally gave in to the fact that yes, he was sick, and we tried to find a way into Waynesboro given the fact that we couldn’t afford yet another few days at the B&B. We found a ride into Waynesboro after a few hours and went down to stay at the YMCA since the only hostel in town we could afford didn’t open until 5 p.m.
After trying unsuccessfully to find a place to camp, we heard back from Nokey’s friend Bearfoot who lived in the area and could come pick us up to take us to her house to rest up. We stayed the night with them and decided to do a slack pack for our first day into Shenandoah so we wouldn’t be struggling to hike after being sick.
Our slackpack didn’t go well either. We unfortunately were in the park for Memorial Day weekend. It was not only hot, but the water situation on the ridgeline in the heat wasn’t good for us either. The terrain wasn’t too hard, but we weren’t 100% yet and the heat was really cooking us. Only about 3 hours into our slack, we ran across Sasha and Miss Maggie. Sasha had been bitten or stung by something just moments before we ran into them and he was covered in hives and losing his vision. We sat with them and assisted the rangers while they took his vitals and waited for EMS. After this, our slackpack got tiring and we were ready for dinner. Thankfully, Bearfoot picked us up and took us to a great AYCE place that was straight out of Vegas in terms of the food we could eat. We got our resupply at Walmart and were ready to get back to the trail with our full packs.