Some dramatic pictures to appease and please the clamoring hordes

(Rhoderunner) Breakfast (Special) at Wind Rock

Non-view from Dragon's Tooth

Bones in his tiny seat at the Home Place in Catawba, VA

The 700 mile mark (we're actually past 900...) on a sad fence stile

Giggles and Chuckles and the quintessential MacAfee's Knob picture 

Captain, Giggles, and Boat on the Tinker Cliffs

Emergency Snickers break 

The longest walking bridge on the AT over the James River (Chuckles barely made it over, her legs are so short)

We climbed those three ridges with turkey sandwich and chocolate pudding trail magic in our bellies. 

We got a visit from the wonderful Grace Kelley, who put in 14 hours of driving and an unexpected amount of gnarly hiking just to see us and bring us Fireball and snacks! What a lovely woman :)

Our trail family, no longer together, but forever tied by a love for exposed thighs. 

More to come....we're nearing the halfway point, and we need support! Send food please we're so hungry

"I heard you guys hike 4 miles per hour...."

An addendum to our quantitative post: 

There's a rumor going around trail that Chuckles and Giggles hike 4mph. We thought we'd clarify some things for those BoiColins out there. 

Our pace hovers around 3mph. Anything faster, especially when the terrain is also anything besides downhill, is uncomfortable. And not worth it. We try to do "10 by 12." Sometimes it happens, sometimes we get distracted by burritos handed to us by a trail angel in an elf suit. But usually we'll do 10 miles by noon, and our mileage ranges between 15 and 25 miles per day (25 is pretty miserable, just as it sounds)! 

Wahoo! 

chuckle chuckle giggle giggle

Ponies

Grayson Highlands delivered beautiful views and also wild ponies. Although our LNT Trainer certifications told us to leave wildlife alone, the ponies walked right up to us and nuzzled our hands. There were even a few babies!! 

This is a view from the highlands. 

This is a pony and its baby. 

There were many ponies. 

Pony!

They were friendly and tryna chill. 

But sadly we had to leave to ponies so that we could make it to mile 500! 

Fueled by a few occasions of Virginia trail magic, we pushed and made another 100 miles in less than a week. 

Thus far we have loved Virginia. The ridge walks are a nice break from the ups and downs we had in North Carolina and Tennessee. Unfortunately, living in the Midwest has not prepared us for the heat--we've done a few 20+ mile days in some hot weather with minimal water sources in between. Four of those in a row left us pretty exhausted. But we made it over a quarter of the way to Katahdin!!!!

Virginia!

We made it to Virginia, which means we've completed over 20% of the trail. A really long section of the trail covers Virginia (550 miles!), so we will be here for a while. Here are some photos from some of our state crossings: 

This was the first, Georgia to North Carolina. This was also a long ways back...but we figured we could still share the picture.

Crossing the border from North Carolina to Tennessee happened many times, so we didn't document that. 

But here we are with the Captain, moving onto Virginia! We were so excited that the 3.5 miles down to Damascus was the fastest that we've ever hiked!