Day 68-72

Trail Days – Thursday to Monday

Oh Trail Days.  I can only imagine that it is the hiker equivalent of Glastonbury.

Bunny, a hiker from last year had offered me a lift on Thursday afternoon so it was Maccies for breakfast again whilst I was killing time in Marion.

I got really fancy and brought some Deodorant, assuming if I were going to be sat in a car with a few people for an hour or so I should at least be as clean as possible.  I had also washed all my clothes and had a hair cut.  I was almost civilised!

I went to the Pizza place in town and even though it was delicious it beat me!  I mean am I even a hiker?  How can I leave food?

I don’t know what I really expected but it was not any thing like I could have imagined.

The town of Damascus literally turns mostly into a tent city.  The open the woods at the back of town for us.

There are lots of groups or clans of previous hikers that set up these amazing areas. Some examples are Riff Raff, Trash People and Hicker Village.

I ended up in Hicker Village, their theme for the year was Pirates, and before you could say jelly shot I had an eye patch on and a feather in my hair.

They also had a screen and we watched pirates of the Caribbean each night.

They had some drinking games going on, dizzy bat that I did not do, and THAT, where there was a jelly shot under a bit of card with “That” written on it.  Passers by would be asked what’s that? And the game would unfold.

Their hospitality was out of this world and I can’t thank them enough, after all I was just a random hiker that pitched a tent in their area.

At one point the local police came by, I was renamed Prince William for a while but it was fun to chat to them.  As I’d never held a gun they invited me to a gun range the next morning.  I respectfully declined!

On Saturday there is a parade of all the previous hikers and at the very back is this years class.  The locals all have water guns and spray water over all the “dirty hiker trash”. It’s all in good humour and was a rather jolly affair.

Sunday after looking around the stalls it was back to Wicked Chicken for some food, to again repay their kindness when we last passed through.

Thankfully most of the weekend was dry, but when it rained it poured!  Thats just the weather down here.

They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and I suppose what happens at Trail Days stays at Trail Days.  Just know that I had a blast.

Now it’s back to Marion to get clean again and Tuesday it’s back to the Hiking day job.  I know time is now very tight before the end of my Visa, but I would not have missed this for the world.