5/14 - 5/20 - East Coast Trip

By Hedgehog
Starting Mileage: N/A
Ending Mileage: N/A

I'm going just summarize this time as its not really hike related.

Tuesday morning Aloha took us to our hotel near LAX. We took the free airport shuttle to the international terminal in LAX for dinner (dining was outside of security). 

Our flight the next day was uneventful, but we were both impressed with Virgin America having never flown with them before.

We had arranged to stay a couple of nights with a member of our AT trail family in the greater DC area. We had hoped to spend that time catching up with him. Sadly he had family emergencies while we were there so we weren't able to see him much. On our way out of town we stopped at the local REI to try and fix my bent trekking poles and resupply some other things. BooBoo started talking to a salesman who turned out to be an AT thru-hiker who was going to hike the PCT in 2014.
Snarky was very helpful.

In fact he offerrd to try and get my poles fixed at an AT event he was going to over the weekend. We could pick them back up on our way back through on Monday.
Trail Magic on the other side of the country!

We headed down to Charolettesville where one of BooBoo's friends would be putting us up along with BB's sister Maggie. Maggie combined a vacation to FL with time to attend BB's graduation.  She was not the only family member to fly across the country to see the ceremony,  Magic Man and Red Shirt combined a vacation touring old historic gardens with seeing BB's graduation.

BooBoo's same friend graciously offered her lake house to Magic Man and Red Shirt.

The hooding took place Friday night, it was a proud moment seeing BooBoo get her hood.
The graduation ceremony on Sunday was impressive. UVA follows traditions dating back to its founding by Thomas Jefferson. I'm just thankful the rain held off.

We ran some errands in Cville before heading back to the greater DC area. We texted our friend abd let him know our ETA. We also arranged to meet Snarky.  Unfortunately he couldn't get my poles fixed (wrong manufacturer was at the event) but he bought us an iced tea and we talked for a while.  I purchased new poles (I really shouldn't hike without poles). We bid adieu to Snarky and headed towards our friend's place.
Unfortunately his families' medical issues persisted. We crashed at his place but didn't get to see him before flying out early the next morning.