You hear about this big celebration, Trail Days.

What is it?

Let's find out.

We have back with us, a returning guest and our friend, Katie Houston, who was at Trail Days 2024.

Katie, welcome back.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I am in my driveway right now, not even 24 hours back from Damascus.

Yeah, every year, Katie, I say,

you know, I really need to get down there.

There's creators that I've been in touch with. There's business people like yourself that I've interviewed. You know, there's a lot of people that I know if I went down or I cross paths with that I you know that I've never met in person but I've only talked to through the podcast this year didn't work out unfortunately again, but maybe you can let me know what I missed out on let Let me know what the disappointment is. Isn't this kind of like me asking for to be punished?

Yeah, right, I'm giving you FOMO. You're asking to give you FOMO.

But I think our listeners would really like the would be interested in first what

trail base is and some of the activities that that occur there so let's start with this

what is trail base? Sure, Trail Days is a big celebration of the Appalachian Trail, all things Appalachian Trail.

The Trail Days for the AT is in Damascus every year, Damascus, Virginia.

It's known as Trailtown, USA.

It also, with the AT going through it, it also has the Virginia Creper Trail,

which is a beautiful biking trail.

So they have a whole lot of recreation love

in that town, aptly named Trailtown, USA.

But every year, hordes of hiker trash

and gear manufacturers and

manufacturers and non-profits and community members

...