June 22, 2024 2 min to read

AT Blog: 60 through 63

Something Stopped Me

Day 60:

So I’m not feeling much better today. The fever broke in the night, but I have a pounding headache and aches all over. I steady myself to hike 5 miles to Lewis Campground, where there’s a campstore and wayside nearby.

The hike is slow going for me, and I don’t feel the best the whole way through. I get to the campstore shortly after it opened and run into Taxi and shortly Lobster and Tigger. I let him know I’m feeling under the weather so don’t get too close.

I get a sandwich from the store and pay to use their shower (at a staggering price of 5 dollars for 5 minutes). They also had laundry machines I utilized.

I’m feeling pretty beat up, so I opted to get a tentsite and rest the rest of the day. I set up at the top of the hill, after scouting a spot with signal. I just pray that I feel better tomorrow.

Day 61-63:

It got worse, much much worse. During the night my stool went from a normal type to completely liquid. I knew pretty much from there that I had Noravirus. Remember the Porta potty I mentioned? Noravirus usually travels via crap and contaminated surfaces. Also normal hand sanitizer won’t kill it. So I likely picked it up there.

I was feeling exhausted, I had to stay close to the bathroom and pay attention to any desire to go. I was just hoping at that point to sleep and get up early to get a ride to someplace better tomorrow. Fortunately when I stayed in Glasgow at Stanimals, they had mentioned about their shuttles (which I used) but they also mentioned their Waynesboro location and how they paid for a year pass to go into Shanendoah where I was.

I called them early in the morning and managed to get a ride back to Waynesboro post haste. I stayed at Holiday Inn. My mom graciously made an instacart order with some essentials for me, and sent it to the hotel.

The rest of the day and the day after were spent in my room, nursing a little food and a lot of water, and using the restroom a lot. Noravirus was nasty to deal with. I spent a lot of time sleeping and lying in bed.

On day 63 my stool had solidified again and I was able to do some stuff. I went ahead and got a ressupply, some better meals that wasn’t part of the BRAT diet, and I felt up to seeing Star Wars: The Phantom Menace at the local theater. To my surprise they also had a sneak preview at The Acolyte the new show coming out.

After this whole ordeal and 4 days off trail, I was thankful to be feeling better and was not looking foward to getting used to hiking again.