Trail Days!

What to say about trail days...
Trail days is pretty much a three day party that the town of Damascus through for all the hikers, past and present. Most hikers within 100 miles north or south of damascus come in for it, not to mention all the old through hikers and gear reps that come.
The activities started Thursday morning which is one reason we pushed so hard to get in Wednesday night. We woke up early and went and got in line for meal tickets the baptist church was giving out. You needed a ticket to be able to get the amazing dinner they cooked that night, and we happened to be the first in line. After we got our tickets we walked down the street and these older ladies sitting on a porch called to us and asked if we wanted coffee cookies and hats. Turns out they were a craft group with the church and had crocheted a ton of hats for all the hikers. By the next day all the hikers in town were sporting their new hats. Later that afternoon the held an eating contest and of course our group of guys were all over it. The way they did it was everyone who wanted to participate put their name in a hat and they drew 8 people for the hotdog part and 8 people for the sheet cake part. There were a ton of people to sign up but the third name to be called was Austin's. Then right after him both phlegm and gravity were called up along with another guy we have hiked on and off with named Milo. There was a table set up on a flatbed truck with a bunch of chairs on one side for them to sit. They were all big guys and had trouble sitting shoulder to shoulder. They each got 8 hotdogs and whoever finished the most in 3 minutes won. Right off the bat phlegm started to choke but quickly recovered. By the end of the 3 minutes he was crowned the winner after eating 5 and a half of the hotdogs, our friend Milo got second, a guy we didn't know got third, and austin and gravity tied for fourth eating 4 hotdogs. Phlegm won a 7 ounce hammock that we ended up hanging up in a tree for the rest of trail days (see pic) I arson got some great pictures of the eating contest but they aren't on my phone. The rest of Thursday we hung out around the church and used the internet cafe they had set up and took showers in the disaster relief shower trailer the church had set up behind it. And that night we ate the biggest most amazing home cooked meal ever!
On friday we got up and walked around a festival like area that they had set up in the park. One side was all the topical festival vendor tents with every kind of crafted item. Then in the middle was all the festival foods like funnel cake and roasted corn. But past that was all the vendors for the hikers. That weren't major brands of gear for the most part, but alot of smaller companies selling very creative and interesting things. We had a blast walking around. The major gear companies had tests set up just outside of town where they had sectioned off an area for the hikers to stay. However that wasn't to sell gear but repair any gear that had a problem with it. Austin got his treeing poles fixed and a hole in his kilt sown up.
Saturday a friend that we had made before the smokies that isn't hiking the trail, grey fox, came to hang out with us for the night. We met up with him at one of the diners and talked for a long time until the hiker parade started at 2. Our whole group had bought ridiculous clothes at the thrift store for a dollar to wear during the parade so we ran back to our tents to change and missed the beginning of the parade but jumped in when we could. Apparently a long time ago when the parade was going on some of the locals thought the hikers smelled so bad that they trough water at them and started a tradition that during the parade all the locals who turn out to watch us walk down the street bring water balloons or supersoakers and it just turns into the biggest cross town water fight. We had a blast catching balloons and throwing them back at the locals. We were soaked by the end but had tons of fun. Our friend grey fox was gonna stay at tent city that night and since we had to be there early the next morning anyways we packed up our tents and moved to tent city for the night. When we got there the gear tents were doing some give-aways and having some contests. Our friend gravity won a 4 man non-backpacking tent from the raffle. Pretty cool but very un practical for what we are doing and it turned out to be a little bit of a pain to send it home, cool none the less. Austin spent most of the time hanging around the Princeton tec tent because they were having a competition that he turned out to be very good at. Its kinda hard to explain so stay with me... there was a long mat laid on the ground about 10 or more feet long, the object was to see who could set a nalgene waterbottle the farthest on the mat without touching the mat. So what most guys would do is take two nalgenes and walk it out with their hands until they were in push-up positions with all their weight on the waterbottles (making sure their right hand was centered on their chest) then put all their weight on their right hand and stretch with their left and place the waterbottle with their finger tips as far as they could. Now the hardest part of this whole thing wasn't doing all that but having the strength to be able to push you whole body back up to standing with only the one bottle left. It was much like doing a diamond push-up but with your hand glancing on top of a waterbottle. But of course austin rocked this competition. (See pictures) he didn't have any trouble at all with the standing part at the end (which is where most failed) the only thing he had trouble with is the fact that there is a maximum for how far it is physically possible to stretch depending on how tall you are. Height isn't everything tho and austin was beating alot of guys talked then him and was in first place for a long time, until right at the end a guy who had austin beat by a good 4 inches came and passed him. But austin still won second place and ended up winning an awesome headlamp. O yea and I was the only girl that was able to complete the challenge. Most girls tried to do it the same as the guys but our center of gravity is different. So I balanced with the bottle at my stomach and was able to do it. No prize for me tho cause I was still a good 2 feet too short. The rest of the night was fun baning out with grey fox but we went to bed early cause we had to be up early for hard core trail crew! But that's another post for another night! And I promise im trying to caught up! So busy! But that was pretty much trail days :)

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