Blacksburg or Bust!

On Saturday morning, our friend Dave offered to drive the 45 minutes out to Pearisburg to pick us up. Instead we thought it would be more fun and interesting to hitch, since A.T. hikers are very familiar to drivers in the area.

After a grocery stop where the trail lets out onto 460, we caught an immediate ride from a woman who took us to the business district of Pearisburg - an ideal intersection and a payphone as a bail-out option.

Minutes later another couple stopped and said they'd take us as far as they could. I pressed them if they were headed all the way to Blacksburg. They said they were not, but could take us that direction. Two miles later I realized they had no idea where we needed to go and were about to take us on the freeway entrance in the wrong direction, at which point I had them drop us off.

Now we were two miles from a phone or building and after 20 minutes no driver had shown interest in picking us up. After feeling some despair in our situation, I remembered the carrots in our bag and developed a plan to let the drivers know our intentions, or at the very least make us laugh at how ridiculous we were.



Shortly after a guy in a pickup pulled over laughing and told us to hop in the back of his pickup. Success!