Day 2 - by Olivia

The group was fed, packed, and in the vans ready to go by 9:00 this morning. Once again we drove for hours on end. This time it was across the Shenandoah National Forest, which I personally would have enjoyed more if I had not gotten motion sickness and was therefore drugged up on one pill of Dramamine. We stopped in Fort Royal Virginia and hiked 6 miles of the Appalachian Trail (only 2,090 to go!) We were looking for the source of the Rappahannock River, which we are pretty sure we found… On that particular hike the sun finally made an appearance and graced us with its rays of warmth, wildlife wise we saw an orange newt and creepy millipedes that were way too big for my liking. Once the hike was over we climbed back in the van and drove (this time for a civil amount of time) to the Unicorn Vineyard, where we get to spend the night. Dr. Chandler, Tyler Biggs, Kaitlyn and myself were referred to as lizards when we laid on a big rock and sunned ourselves. It was quite nice I must say. The Rappahannock is currently raised by 5 feet due to the immense amount of rain that we have received, so we are not quite sure if we are going to launch from here or from another site, that is currently in the works. There was as my father would call it “a world class thunderstorm” during dinner and it was awesome, only most of us had to go and re-do/move our tents because we were afraid that the ground tarps would flood and get all our gear wet. Overall we have had a nice day and a grateful to the owners of the Vineyard for allowing us to stay on their private land. We are all very eager to hopefully start paddling tomorrow!