75% Done!

Hey all! Just checking in from Damascus, VA! I have less than 500 miles left to walk!!
Apparently there's a big AT festival here every May called 'Trail Days' that sounds like a lot of fun. But that particular weekend of this coming May, I have something much more important to see to: my friend Ben's wedding! So no trail days for me.
Lately I've been travelling with two guys I met named Snowman (age: 25), and Riverdawg (22). This morning we woke up to snow flurries (!) and pushed to Damascus to get a package from my sister that I bounced from Atkins, VA, but it's not here yet :( Time to find a place to sleep... (Though all the hostels are closed for the off-season).
I could tent with the local homeless folks...
Which brings me to the latest debate in my mind: getting rid of the tent.
As I've mentioned before, the AT is very user-friendly. The prevalence of shelters along the trail has made me question (to the point of neurosis) my 3.5 lb tent.
At this point, I still don't know whether I'll finish this winter, spring, or at all. But every mile I carry that weight, I resent the wear and tear on my body. The flip side is that some of the best nights I've spent on the trail have been in that tent. But I can camp any time, right? And the lightweight pack beckons... like a siren in the night.
So whenever these packages show up (My friend Sharkey is sending me something as well) I'll be off again, sans tent. Past the Greyson Highlands, with their wild ponies, and on to the smokeys, with their snow, probably.
Wish me warmth :)

Spoiled :)

Well, I had stopped at a free hostel called Four Pines, which is really just the three car garage of a good-ole-boy type who is kind enough to let weary hikers sleep there on old cots, couches, or a twin bed in the corner.
But it's hunting season, so he had three gory, gutted deer hanging in the garage when I got there. 'No big deal' I thought, figuring I could still take advantage of a free place to rest my body for a day. After the previous 6 days of hiking 20+ miles/day, I had some sort of a stitch in my right calf, and I figured I was being cautious by resting up.
Bad idea.
After I left, the first symptom I noticed was feeling abnormally exhausted. Normally, other than acute feet, I feel great after 15 miles, but here I was, 2 miles in, and I felt like my boots were made of cement.
Lyme disease? I wondered, in a 'here comes the show stopper' sort of way. So many people have to quit this journey for injury or sickness, that I figured it was my turn :(
But the next day it was hard to force food down my throat and I had pretty horrible diarrhea, plus a pain in my gut that was seriously distracting. So when I hitched into a post office to mail Lysandra a b-day card, I just kept hitching... to another hostel (not free: a good way to avoid sleeping in a petri dish) that I had read about and was looking forward to (free yoga?! Oh yeah!)
And I took another zero.
                             ... in paradise.
This place is called Woods Hole, and is a log cabin that's as close to 'self sustaining' as a place can get while still having all the amenities to help a sick hiker recover while he poops his brains out.
Three hitches later, I arrived and was told by Neville that she and her husband, who run/own this little slice of heaven were going into Blacksburg, VA for a rare town run. They'd leave in the morning, would be running errands all day, and were taking he opportunity to see live music, so if I wanted to see live music, I was invited to buy a $12 ticket online now and I could go with them.
The band was called Rising Appalachia and, I was told, are popular in Asheville and I'd love 'em.
One day, one amazing small-venue concert, and 3 home grown and home cooked meals later, and I feel like a million bucks! This place could easily be a rustic-fancy $200/night B&B, but for hiker-hostel rates I got garden fresh food, got to play a hand-made early-sixties Martin guitar, got a free ride to a totally eccentric spin on Old Time Appalachian music (right up my alley), got to feed baby cows, goats, and chickens, and got an hour long massage (okay, that was extra).
Wow.
Guess it's time to go hiking :)

Testing, testing...

...1, 2, 3.

Here's a random photo b/c I'm testing the Blogger app on my phone that hadn't been working for so long.

Virginia is for hikers...

   Wow.
   So I got back on the trail after the Mega Storm That Shook The World (but not the apartment I was in ;)) and hiked for six days on my own. I knew I didn't want to be totally solo (even skipped farther ahead so I could be... in the general area where I, kinda thought people I kinda-know, might... be? Well, hopefully you get the point: It's a guessing game.
   But I was on my own for those six days and (I'm guessing that my state of mind had something to do with it, but) they felt like the least eventful days on the trail to date. I usually didn't get going until 8 or 9, hiked until 5 or so, set up camp, read a bit and snoozed. Bumped into a few Weekend Warriors. One couple of guys, when asked what they did for a living said, "We work for the government," in a suspiciously monotone, sparse-on-the-details way...  
   ...and I scooted my sleeping bag a bit farther away in the shelter...
   kidding, kidding. No, living in the woods requires a bit of trust in your fellow man, and the creepy way that guy answered the question didn't even phase me. But I was gone the next morning before they woke up. Not on purpose, of course, but I woke up at 5:30 and immediately turned on my phone because I had to see if we had a new president (yup, it was THAT day)... then I couldn't get back to sleep so, you know: those miles aren't gonna hike themselves.
   Every day I was pushing myself. Hard. I was trying to catch up to a familiar face, sure, but also trying to push my limits a bit more. I was getting 18-20 miles/day. I was walking up on deer that would sometimes start and run, lifting their tails and waving their white 'flag' of surrender as they go bounding over brush and into the forest. But sometimes they'd just freeze, as close as 15 feet from me, while I walked by. The days were tough, but (nothing like NH and ME, so) though I was tired at the end of the day, I could usually still do some sit ups, read, and make myself some hot chocolate before I passed out.
   Those days are long gone.
   Things changed when I walked into Harpers Ferry ('HF'), WV.
   HF is the town in WV where the ATC headquarters is located. I'd been hearing about it since Maine. About how they'd take your picture, ever to be immortalized in the stacks of photos of other former through hikers! (This is the place where the curmudgeon through-hiker I'll Try who hated hiking had been volunteering FULL TIME for 5 years!) And it's supposed to have this great little hostel called the Teahorse, where, for a nominal fee, I can prop my feet up and take a zero for a day :)
   It was a ghost town.
   The Teahorse was closed and the book told me that the B&B in town was $120/night! The town bar was even closed and it was only 5pm! But as always, things have a way of working out. Two other guys I had met showed up, one with a broken toe, so we decided to split the cost of a room in the B&B. So I zeroed in Harpers Ferry with two guys (The Principal and Blueberry) who aren't stopping in Georgia, they're hiking to Key West! The Principal was... you guessed it, a school principal for over a decade, had never been camping before his Trip on the A.T. / Mid Life Crisis Re-Evaluation, and is now hiking to Key West. Blueberry is about a decade younger, and is hiking to raise money for a rare blood disease called Fanconi Anemia (he's got pamphlets, so I guess he's legit).
   So the three of us are showered and groaning with every painful step on our tired feet as we shuffle downstairs for dinner in B&B bathrobes (no clean clothes). The proprietor of the B&B pops her head in just long enough to proselytize a bit, and to tell us about the two drink MAXimum in her restaurant (digressing to tell us that she has no problem with beer, or alcohol, but that getting drunk is a sin). The Principal immediately rushes back upstairs, puts on dirty clothes, and heads out the door with no explanation. About 15 minutes later he returns with his jacket in his hands (freezing outside, by the way) bundled in a suspiciously square sort of way... and heads straight upstairs.
   ...and that's how I end up drinking Yuengling in a very secretive dorm-esque setting while listening to a 40 yr old graying principal tell me about how much he loves his guns... and how F'd up it was that he got fired... and that although he's never quite been able to trust Obama (upon questioning he elaborated: {shrug} "Never trusted him," and "just don't trust the guy") and voted for the lesser of two evils: Romney. But the guy he really liked, the guy he identified with was.... Herman Cain!
   AAAWWWE SHUCKY-DUCKY, NOW!
   Wow.
   A couple more people rolled into town over the next 24 hours: Sharkey and Ulysses. Ulysses was finishing his through hike here in Harpers Ferry, and gave me some treats he had left over (candy and 400mg ibuprofen gels). Sharkey is finishing up his Yo-Yo of the appalachian trail. He hiked from Georgia to Maine, turned around and is now headed back to Georgia. He's 51 years old, loves life, and is very vocal about his love for hiking the AT. He's a motivational sort of guy to be around, so I hiked out of town with him.
   That was about a week ago. Since then, I've been waking up at the crack of dawn and hiking 'till dusk. There are no sit-ups. There is no reading. We average 23 miles a day (two days in a row, I got 24!) partly because it's getting really cold! I woke up one morning with the drinking water I had set next to me frozen solid!
   Sharkey got off the trail some days ago because he lives in Waynesboro, VA and was taking some time off. He's very into the idea of hiking every single mile of the trail as it exists today, so he rationalizes his choice by pointing out that he's already hiked about 80 miles around where he lives, so he's not going to hike it again this year, but still count it as part of his through hike. I, having skipped some 200 miles, couldn't care less what a guy who's already hiked 3,500 miles this year skips or doesn't skip.
   The day Sharkey got off the trail I hiked 27 miles with a 37lb pack to catch up with some friends I had made in Maine: Mandela and Terra Nauta. (I'm proud of my "big miles" that day, but it probably won't happen again... this winter :)) Mandela is 25 or so and got his trail name b/c his last name is Nelson, though I prefer to introduce him as heavily involved in South African apartheid reform. Terra Nauta, (Mandela's girlfriend) chose her own trail name from the latin words Terra (earth) and Nauta (sailer).
   The next day we made it into Waynsboro, VA, where I typed the first half of this post.
   We ate an all we could eat buffet at Ming's Garden, an asian-themed american buffet created by american-themed asian people.
   NOW I'm sitting just about a mile from the A.T. at Sharkey's house, where I've been holed up for the past couple of days zeroing out, stretching out, zoning out, laying out, pigging out, and generally being out of it. I'm a bit in awe of Sharkey's setup here. He's got 11 acres or so in a beautiful valley of land that's under conservation easement (so, no development in this lifetime) and is lined by a ridge of national parkland known as The Appalachian Trail.
   It's pretty freakin' beautiful here, folks.
   And Here I sit. Fully refreshed and ready to hike out tomorrow morning.
   I have 837 miles to go until Springer Mtn, Georgia, but I can't say I'm entirely attached to the outcome of me standing on that particular mountain. There have been twists and turns along the way, but at the end of the 'day' (read: at the end of the six months) I will have traveled for six months (mostly backpacking), seen the Appalachian Mountains, dosed myself with some healthy disillusionment (You mean all that I have control over is what I think about, say, and do? Oh yeah!), experienced a different sub-culture (and a whole new way of existence! Some people are homeless by choice, and living a totally respectable life! Pro-Tip: they're not the ones begging you for beer money), and walked some 2,000 miles!
   ...and that's exactly how I'll rationalize stopping wherever I stand in mid January.
   ...okay that and I'll be out of money.
 

   Up Next: Graduate School!?! *cue doom/gloom music*
   I'm into science, and finding the extent of human potential, so lately I've been thinking about Bio-Mechanical Engineering: I may help humanity with the transition to 'Borg after all! {so scary!... so exciting!}

Decisions

Sometime is not about making a decision, but realizing that the decision has already been made. With a lot of crying, on Tuesday October 16th I decided to get off the Appalachain Trail. Several reasons come to mind, the biggest being the constant foot pain I continued to have. I had good and bad days, but overall my feet still hurt at least half the day. Along with the days getting shorter, the constant cold wet weather the last few weeks, and the knowledge that to finish by January we need to walk 20 miles every day, I decided that finishing this trail was not going to be fun, and I was not going to walk 2000 miles just to say I did. Perhaps that makes me weak, I think it just makes me......me.

I love this trail and am so grateful that I walked it as much as I did. 640 miles is where I stopped, which feels like a very big and very small number. I'm proud that I did what I did, and hope this is just the start of my backpacking adventures. I also hope to take much shorter backpacking adventures next time :)

As yall know Andrew is continuing the trail without me, and understands why I am needed to stop. It has been extremely odd to go from seeing each other every day to being apart for even a week. As odd luck would have it, he hiked solo for a week and then had to come back to NYC to wait out the hurricane, so I still haven't had to say good-bye for too long. But I know it could be a month or more before I see him again, which I can't think to much about without getting seriously bummed. Perhaps it's good balance, to have this time apart, but I'm missing him and the trail a lot. I also know I needed to get off the trail and still feel that was the right decision for me.

I feel blessed to have some great friends in NYC that let me stay there for over two weeks, especially the last few days where we waited out a hurricane and I couldn't get out of the city because the airports closed. Going from hiking the trail to NYC was a real mind trip and it is equally strange to now be home in NC where I have lots of friends and family but still not a house to call my own. So now I have to find a job, place to live, get back to the "real world" which I quite enjoyed being out of.

 I hope that I can keep the things I learned on this trail close to my heart and mind as I figure out what is next in my life. I miss the simplicity of walking every day. Eating snacks under fall colored leaves, filling water up from crystal clear streams, and knowing everything I "needed" was on my back. It has only been three months, but it feels like I've been out of the world for much longer than that. 

I cannot say how wonderful all the support has been from all my friends and family. Thank you for believing in us, encouraging us, loving us and following our journey. Now we can all follow my wonderful boyfriend, your favorite Andrew and mine, as he embarks on his solo adventure. Go Andrew Go! 

Sandy Schmandy...

   When I got back on the trail it was just north of the Hudson. I got to cross the Bear Mtn Bridge and then climb Bear Mtn which is a super-touristy mountain in that it has mostly stone steps up and down each side, and also the paths on the top are such fine packed gravel that we can safely call them 'practically paved.'
   From there I went Northwest. Not my decision. I just followed the 2x6 inch white 'blazes' that I have been trained to follow, and that's where the trail took me: along the NY/NJ boarder. When I cut back into NY, briefly, before I was supposed to cross NJ for reeelz, I entered Unionville, NY. Just to be clear, this is day 4 of me being out on my own and lemme tell ya... boy is it lonely to suddenly be, well... alone.
   ...But I digress...
   As I was entering Unionville every day-hiker that I encountered, when I told 'em I was through-hiking, warned me about hurricane Sandy and said I should find a place to 'hole up' for a couple of days.

   {sidenote: lots of people hiking the AT last year had to skip entire states (though usually just Vermont) 'cause hurricane Irene made so many of the trails impassable.}

   So my options were to hike out of town, or find other means of transportation (even people passing me on the street, not in conversation, would see my backpack and say things like, "You don't want to be out there this weekend" or, "Best get on out of town now." --When I read it back, that one sounds more threatening than it was meant. You see, there are no places to rent a room in Unionville. The night I was there I set up my tent outside the local bar. It was kind of nice actually... no worries about driving home. No lost keys to contend with... just stumble on out to the tent and you're good: a service more bars should offer :))
   So I made the decision to skip a bit of trail (Lindsay: keep your eyes peeled for a picture of me on that Segway ;)). While it's disappointing to me that my adventure has changed it's track, I'm also still totally excited that I'm getting to do this at all! Most of the other southbounders are a good 200 miles south of me already, so that's a big factor. Also I've been hiking in damp/overcast weather for four days now and am getting 'diaper rash' on the inside of my arms because my t-shirt never dries. So the idea of hiking out of Unionville in the HOPES that I stumble across a hiker-hostel soon (where I can wait out the storm) seemed like a long shot.
   So I started to look into buses/trains which, apparently. If I'm trying to get 150 miles south on the AT (well into Pennsylvania) I'll have to go through New York City, where I have friends I can stay with.

   ... So I did.
I holed up in NYC for the duration of the hurricane, trying to fatten up while also trying to respect the generosity of my hosts and not eat them out of house and home. We were so fortunate! We never lost power, we ate well every night, and it was like an extended weekend for the people who live here (but a weekend on hurricane-watch house arrest is, I'm sure, no exciting ride for someone who LIVES in the city) so we just watched movies all day and played Bananagrams and crosses between Telephone and Pictionary.  My new favorite way to make chocolate milk is half milk, half heavy cream (try it, it's lovely), and I've eaten a pint of ice cream two nights in a row (though I'm sure I'll be back to 'constantly hungry' within a few days of being on the trail). As I sit here typing it's Wednesday night. Holloween!! I got to walk around in NYC today and see a  boatload of costumes. The friends who are so generously letting me occupy / stink up their space went for a walk this evening with one of their dogs dressed like a shark :)
   Tomorrow morning I'll take a subway to Penn station to catch a bus at 9:00am to Philadelphia, to take another train to Harisburg, PA. Then I have to figure out how to get to Duncannon, where I'll pick up the trail. AAAND where I"ll get the package my lovely sister sent to me! I didn't get to open it (they wouldn't have let me 'bounce' it forward for free if I had opened it), and I can't wait to see what I'll be snacking on for the next few days :)
   I'm distracted right now, so this is the end of this post :)

Andrew's "Journal": Day 82

   Hey Friends and Fam!
   These days I'm so exhausted at the end of each day that I've all but stopped writing in my daily journal, thus the quotations in the title. So now I'll try my best to give coherent anecdotes about the last week or two:

   Almost through Vermont!! We've discovered unpasteurized apple cider during apple season in VT: Ambrosia, people, look it up. We've learned that the A.T. is MUCH easier south of New Hampshire (despite what Northbounders have told us)!! We've cranked up the mileage and learned to overeat (a staple of the N. American skill set). And we've hiked over 1/4 of the entire trail!!! Every day my list of things to be grateful for grows by at least one, so the official subtitle of this post is: Grattitude: +1

   We walked into Bennington, VT shortly after my air mattress had started to come apart, ballooning up on one end. It started out like one of those floating lounge-chair things that you might use in the pool, with a nice built in pillow. But the bubble grew beyond pillow size and the whole thing became unsleepable.
   So I got a new one shipped to Bennington. +1
   I did this from the top of a mountain (because I have a magical box that can show pictures of bubbly mattresses to people in Seattle, send my voice along with the pictures, and find addresses in Vermont... from the top of a mtn! Some people call it a 'phone'... I call it magic to be grateful for). +1
   After I had it sent, I noticed (in our little travelers' companion book) that the place I had the package shipped would accept packages 'for guests.' And the next two days were spent worrying that they would see my name on a box, check the guest register, and send it back, via FedEx, to Seattle :( BUT when we walked out of the woods and onto VT-9 (5 miles east of Bennington) hungry, cold, and tired, Lysandra's cousin picked us up in a larger magical box (+1) that held heat inside it's glass walls (+1), and carried our delicate human bodies faster than they were ever designed to travel (+1)... on a strip of oil (+1)... fueled by oil... (+1)
   When we arrived at the Autumn Motel it was still morning. I was still hungry and tired, and saw three possibilities:

1. Maybe they denied the package.
2. Maybe they'll charge me a 'handling fee' of ten bucks or so.
3. Maybe they'll refuse to give me the package unless I get a room for sixty bucks. 

   ...The fourth possibility, that I had not anticipated, is that there would be no one behind the counter, that the door would be unlocked, and that my package would be right there out in the open with my name on it (+1).    As we drove away with my package I considered the possibility that (more than being rude) I had just crossed some fine line of mail fraud and/or theft. But all in all, as we stopped for coffee (+1), it was shaping up to be a pretty good morning.

   Moving on: There's SO MUCH TO WRITE!!!
   We've had our first really long stretch of rain on the trail. After three days of hiking in the rain, you're feelin' pretty good if your boots are dry. After 7 days your boots have no chance, and dry socks (+1) lose their special something (-1). You're so excited to put them on your feet in the morning, then you stick your feet in your boots and wonder, 'What was all that warm fuzzy business, about 10 seconds ago?' You get the point.
   So the weather is harsher: the last two mornings it's been raining cats and dogs (or 'frogs' if you're french) and the temperature has been close to freezing.
   BUT The terrain is WONDERFUL!! (+1)
   The Vermonters are GENIUS!!! ... they've done this thing (some kind of fancy new trail maintenance perhaps?) where they've taken dirt and filled in all the cracks between roots and rocks! They call it: Topsoil. If the word feels foreign on your tongue, check quick! ...odds are good you live in Maine. Some of my more geologically savvy friends and family might already know what I have only recently learned: Glaciers ripped off all the topsoil from Maine! It's true! Like a thief in the night (or maybe like an unnamed backpacker behind the front desk of a small motel in rural Vermont?) glaciers took all the dirt from Maine, straight down to the bedrock, to the coast.

{Sidenote: If you live in Cape Cod: The dirt you live on was stolen from Maine, please give it back.*}

   So the rain is rain. And it's challenging and uncomfortable, and all that you might expect. To sweat in rain gear or walk in the rain? But Fall is absolutely gorgeous and we have things like hot chocolate, and fires, and views, and foliage to make it all worthwhile. Walking through the woods for 10 hours a day gives you so much time to think about things, and with all the distractions of life, that can be a precious thing. Time to think! Without the constant barrage of marketing, good intentioned but misled advice givers, temptations and distractions. Granted, too much time alone can result in false conclusions and unibomber-esque self editing loops. But too much time alone is hardly the rarer of the two commodities... at least in my experience of the world.

Anyway. I'm done rambling. Here are a couple cool things I found that I'm sharing: 
An interactive map of the Appalachian Trail (basically this should be the 'scenic route' that comes up if you choose 'walking' as your mode of transportation between Georgia and Maine): AT interactive map
And here's a cool comic I found that probably took an astounding amount of drawing time at a computer:  Click and Drag (this XKCD comic)

{*...unless, like a certain (still unnamed) backpacker, you feel a bit like that 'stolen' thing is yours, you know, kind of, in a way, and well, possession being 9/10 of the law and everything... let's just let bygones be bygones.} 

   

   

Hiking Solo

   Well friends, It's been an amazing time here in New York City. I've seen not one, but TWO Broadway shows! I've eaten not one, but TWO New York City hotdogs! I've written a list of not one, not two, but THREE things I've done since coming to NYC!
   But the trail is calling... and NYC is expensive. So although I'm having a blast. I'm out.
   Alone :(
   Lysandra has thought long and hard and decided to cut her losses and get off the trail. She's been an amazing trail partner and I'm going to miss the hell out of her. Now, when we started, I knew full well that she had NO IDEA what she was getting herself into. But she said she'd go, so I didn't ask questions :) One of the reasons I decided to do the Appalachian Trail NOW was because I had someone willing to try it with me! It was just a bonus that I was sweet on her *<3* And now I'm going to have a hell of a time figuring out how to turn all of our two-person routines (she usually cooks while I set up 'camp,' etc...) into a one man act.
   Wish me luck, friends. I'll be lonely out there.

*more on the differences of hiking alone after... well, after I've experienced distance hiking, alone, with winter fast approaching.

NYC!!

   So Lyss and I rolled in to New York City yesterday! (the trail doesn't pass straight through the city, but we took a bus in b/c Lysandra has WONDERFUL friends who live here :)
So far I've been relaxing in an antihistamine-induced drowsy haze, but tomorrow will be a day around the city. Already I can tell you that going from the woods to a concrete jungle is HARD! People are EVERYWHERE! and they don't give a CRAP about you!
   Just getting ON the bus to come to new york, while stooping to throw our packs under the bus (a practiced motion, moving a pack) the bus driver goes, "Hurry it, you're holdin' me up. I got a lotta stops to make."
   Slept on a rooftop last night b/c my allergies were a nightmare with two dogs in the apartment. The wonderful Lysandra slept up there with me to keep me company <3, even though I'm sure she's ready to have a bed to sleep in. Today has been lazy, but tomorrow will be adventurous. We're going to a Broadway show!! (much as I wish I could spend a couple hundred bucks to go see Book of Mormon, I'll be settling for the free ticket 'friend connection'). We're going to see Cyrano about Cyrano de Bergerac.
   The trail lately has been ROUGH, but also awesome!! It's continued to rain and be cold. A few days ago we woke up to snow flurries! When you wake up and it's still dark and freezing, a hot drink is a lifesaver, so tea has been seriously integrated into our routine. Lots of tea. Which means we carry honey, naturally (how could you NOT), which means when we stop for snacks sometime we get Honey Shots!!
   All in all the trail is still lovely, even though we may have been robbed of peak fall colors by the weather.
   Lysandra has lots to tell, and tends to be a bit more loquacious than me, so check out her update soon.

Quick update!

Hello all!
Lysandra and I have just crossed the boarder... of Vermont. thanks so much to her wonderful cousin, Dorothy, who she hadn't seen in some 15 years, and who was gracious and hospitable while we dominated her computer and kitchen :)
The last few days on the trail have been VERY rainy and juuust above freezing every morning (perfect hypothermia weather!) So Lyss and I have been drinking lots of tea and stopping for quick snack breaks now involves much layering and unlayering.
Also thanks to my wonderful roomie and mommy! Both of whom sent me stuff in the mail. It's so wonderful to get treats, especially the unexpected (i.e. the random drawing of a 'cat zombie') and it always lifts my spirits.
Anybody who wants to cram a small flat rate box with Pro Bars, I can tell you where to send it!
Okay before I end this quick update I should tell you that Lyss has a trail name!!! Lyss is now EDI. Pronounced as if it's short for Edith, it actually stands for Easy Does It, and is a nod to her cautious nature.
Love you all,
Take care,
Fungi and Edi

ALL DEM PICTURES!

Hey Yall we were having a problem posting all the pictures on this blog, but Andrew spent many hours (because he is a wonderful super fantastic person who I love to peices) putting all the pictures on Flickr! So from here on out, we will probably be posting pictures on this site. So check out our adventures so far :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgiaorbust/

One step forward and then you trip

Well dear friends, family and random people who may be reading this, I am happy to report we are out of the woods! And by that, I mean we have finally completed the "hardest parts of the trail"; we are of course still spending the majority of our times in a wooded area. I'm writing to you from Lebanon, NH which is a town outside Hanover, NH. Andrew has flown home because his grandfather passed away and he of course wanted to be with his family. He will be coming home Sunday so we can set off on the trail Monday morning. We were incredibly lucky that we were in Hanover when trying to make arrangements for him to fly home for several reasons. One we were close to several airports which made flying out easier and Andrew's sister Torie has some good friends in Lebanon who have kindly let me stay at their house for a few days while Andrew is in Memphis, which is great for our budgets.


It feels good to finally have Maine and New Hampshire behind us, though as always our journey is far from over. We have hiked 440 miles with some 1742 miles to go, a number which still seems too big to fathom. It might as well be a humpty billion more miles to hike. At least that's how I feel when I look ahead. When I look behind me I feel pretty darn proud of the miles we have already hiked, given I was sure at least once a day that I was never hiking another step. Many NOBO's have warned us that the miles ahead are much more of a mental challenge than a physical one. Now that we don't have such difficult terrain, we have to focus less on the trail itself and make sure not to "get bored". Currently we are so freakin grateful for the more mild terrain we cannot imagine being bored by it, but like all things in life any good always comes with a little bit of challenge. Keeps us on our toes I suppose. Our last 50 miles of hiking were so wonderful we are still basking in the glow of this much easier trail. There are still roots and rocks of course, but we instantly see a massive difference in the trails. You can actually walk and get a good stride going, which hasn't been the case for the first 400 miles. We have also noticed the difference in the mountains, the last three we climbed were verging on easy (Easy for climbing mountains, of course eating ice cream while watching The West Wing will always be easier than this crazy shit).  You still have uphill and downhill, and are still breathing heavy as you climb, but you get to the top in a reasonable amount of time.  These last few mountains you climb for a bit and then you are at the top, no crying or reaching into the depths of your soul for strength you never knew you had required. It's pretty darn nice. The only flip side are the views are nothing compared to the ones we have seen, but for the moment we are fine with that. Plus fall is coming, so no matter where we are the world is about to be painted with color.

I've gotten a new pair of shoes (Patagonia Mens Trail shoes) and inserts (SOLE modable inserts) that seem to be doing my feet a world of good. That's not to say they don't still hurt in the morning and after mile 11-12ish, but for the most part the pain is tolerable. The smoother terrain also helps with that, I can take nice flat steps instead of crunching my foot in-between whatever rock and/or roots looks the least dangerous. But, as I mentioned, with this new terrain comes different challenges. We have finally increased our mileage, doing 15, 16 even 17 miles days! Oh yeah! Go us! Which means we are walking faster, and somehow for me means I'm falling down like it's my new job. Our last 5 days of hiking (By far our easiest days on the trail terrain wise) I took two fairly hard falls a day, every day. And of course I seem to always injure the same two joints. I keep rolling my right ankle and landing on my left knee. I believe because we are walking faster and I'm not paying attention to every step it's easier for me to miss a small stick or rock which causes me to lose my balance. Also the leaves have started to fall here, so some parts of the trail are covered with dead leaves which makes it harder to see the debris underneath. My first big fall was literally about a mile after our last big climb (Mt Moosilake, super cool mountain) and I remember thinking "Wooohooo, the trail is finally getting easier!" and then rolling my ankle catching myself on both my knees on hard rock, causing both my knees to bleed. Ouch. Every time I fall, tears seem to burst out of me, regardless of the pain, but I do my best to stop the tears quickly. I will say rolling an ankle hurts like a bitch, but I have to keep walking so I try not to focus on the pain, just the idea that if I keep moving forward I will eventually get to rest.

Anyway besides my new trend to bite it hard twice a day I really am enjoying this new terrain and excited to hike with fall. The 15 mile days are exhausting in a completely different way than the 10 mile days in Maine and New Hampshire. It is more a cardio workout, instead of the slow arduous climbing we are accustom to. Usually around mile 12, I severely crave to be done and have to really push myself to keep going those final few miles, no matter how easy. And since we have taken so long in our first two states, we really have to push ourselves to get at least 15 miles a day and hopefully getting to 20. I've promised Andrew I will attempt a 30 mile day, but we will be waiting until a flat as a pancake state like Pennsylvania before I actually attempt that many miles in a day.

Before I forget I must tell a story in which Andrew was my knight in shining calmness. The day before we hiked into Hanover I was feeling pretty good. Despite all the falling, I was keeping a fairly optimistic attitude and really trying to appreciate the easier terrain and lovely fall weather. Then about 10 miles into our day I fell. Dammit. Ouch. But I got up and kept going. But the fall had crushed my spirits and it began what I refer to as the "Avalanche of Negative Thinking" (this seems to happen to me, and many women I know. It is when you start thinking one negative thought which then snow balls into a billion negative thoughts all within a 5 minute period) My first thought was I haven't actually gotten any stronger. This quickly turned into a snowstorm of crazy where my thought pattern went something like:" I've actually gotten weaker and fatter and I'm stupid and I'm the worst hiker ever and my I will never get better and I should probably die because all I do is hike badly and fall and also I'm stupid." Then came many uncontrollable tears. At this point Andrew was hiking ahead of me and didn't know that I had fallen or was having a little mental breakdown. Finally I took some deep breathes and tried to focus on good thoughts, which were mostly I have to keep hiking so suck it up Sykes! Then the trail got tricky very quickly (tall grass covering big rocks) and I fell again, minutes after I'd finally composed myself. Andrew happened to be on a bridge nearby and heard me fall and yelled to inform me he was coming. I had picked myself up by the time he got there, though emotionally I was entering the period after the Avalanche of negative thinking, where logic and reason are completely lost on me and I can turn any positive thought into a negative self deprecating one in under a minute. Andrew has seen this before and did his best to say sweet wonderful things, while also understanding that I may not be able to be cheered up. We did, as always, have to reach our destination if we wanted  a good flat place to sleep. So we walked on and at the first hill we reached I became a 3 year old.
Me: "I can't do this! Why is there a fucking hill? Its suppose to be FUCKING FLAT! I'm too fat to get up this hill and I hate this fucking trail and..... I cant.....I cant.......UGH!!!" This was all said while sobbing.
Andrew: "Ok, lets take a break". And he took his pack off and sat down. I just stared at him.
Me: "But we have to keep going. What if we never make it and we never sleep and we just die here!?"
Andrew: "Well then at least we will be together, now set down your pack and let me hold you."
Me:"Ok."

And then I sat between his legs while he said logical calming things to me and reminded me that this much falling is as damaging to the spirit as it is to the body. All while getting me to focus on calming my breathe down. After a few minutes we got up, and continued to the shelter. I still stopped a few times for totally irrational crying freak out moments, and Andrew handled every one with the patience of a saint. The next day I was able to laugh at my behavior but at the time I really had gone off the deep end, and I am so thankful he was there to pull me back to reality. We have not had a perfect relationship on this trail, in fact this trail has already put our relationship through the ringer several times, but he is a steady rock for me, and I wouldn't still be on this trail without him.

Also we forgot to mention he has a trail name! I dubbed him Funguy (or Fungi) because of his love of all things fungus. (You will see this when you look at our photos!) Seriously the guy stops every 10 minutes to take a picture of all these freakin awesome mushrooms we have seen. Plus he is a fun....guy. Yeah, double meaning, you know you like it. I have yet to have a trail name......would love any suggestions.

We are still in awe by the kindness of strangers and the generosity we've experienced along this trail. Hanover is known as a magical land of Oz type place to AT hikers, and now we know why. There is a list of names on a board when you walk into town, and you call them up and they let you stay at their hose for free! Basically there are 10 adults who open their homes to you, in large part because Hanover is expensive and they want hikers to feel welcome and have a nice place to rest their bodies. We were SUPER lucky to stay with Lizanne, a women in her 40's who is a consultant for non-profits. She picked us up from downtown, drove us to her house, and said "Eat anything you want, there is beer in the fridge, I have to run, but Ill be back soon to cook you dinner" I mean really, besides having a unicorn, her house was pretty much heaven. She cooked us smocked salmon for dinner, had a huge comfy bed for us to sleep in and added bonus was a interesting, smart, wonderful person to be around.
Plus the outfitter gives you a free snickers, the pizza place gives you a free slice, you get a free bagel at the bagel basement and the local dinner gives you a free donut. Plus the town has a FREE bus that runs M-F and takes you pretty much anywhere. I mean this place loves hikers, which is good because we love people who love us. This is a rarity to have this much love in one town, usually we aren't pimpin so hard when we roll into towns, but it feels pretty incredible when it happens.

Alright yall, I've rambled enough, we will try to post more before we leave, there are so many wonderful stories to tell, but for now hope this will do.

Go do something you think you can't do today. Even if you cry, you tried. That's saying something. Love to all!

Woah. I just found a Blogger app for my phone!

Last night we stayed in the home of a woman named Lizanne, who cooked us smoked salmon and gave us the run of the kitchen for breakfast!! French toast and Canadian Bacon... yum. Well fed and ready for a zero l, we hopped on Hanover's free bus system to check out different shoe options for lysandra's feet. Crossing our fingers that we won't have to spend our zero running errands!

Photos!

Check it, my point & shoot has kickass panoramic feature!!

These are the signs above Greenleaf Hut, before I hiked a mile downhill to sleep indoors for the night.

Glad I slept inside last night. Ate like a king at the hut, and woke up to 32 degrees and THIS back up on the A.T.

Perfect timing for a tiny-head silhouette between these rocks! High FIVE, Sun! 

On top of the last mountain in the Whites: Mt. Moosilauke!

And there are SOOOO many  more photos!! (edit: I just deleted a lot of these b/c they were giant and I want to be able to upload photos as part of my posts in the future) Perhaps we'll have time to upload some more while we're zero-ing in Hanover. I miss you all, and hope you are able to live in gratitude for the things you have: like indoor plumbing, for a start.

There are ups... and there are downs...

   WOW! So much has happened over the past couple of weeks!! Though that which is first and foremost on my mind right now has nothing to do with the trail at all. Sadly, we were stumbling into Lincoln, NH after our biggest mileage day so far (17 miles!!!) when I flipped on my phone to get some bad news about my Grandad, who passed away in the middle of the day while napping. Initially it felt like a no-brainer. I'd try my best to get back to Memphis for a memorial service being held in his memory in about a week (Sat. the 22nd).
   In the mean time we've walked 52 miles in 4 days, continuing our successful mileage increase on the amazing terrain south of the White Mountains (Dirt, REAL DIRT!!) and bringing us into Hanover, NH (a town desperately in need of a hiker-hostel). I've done the math and if I were still shooting for finishing by X-mas (miles left / days left = miles/day ; 1,742.1 / 105 = 16.59) it's almost 17 mpd if there are NO ZEROES. So basically I should just re-evaluate and plan on hiking NC and GA in January. I can walk in the cold. I've done it before, I can do it again. And Lysandra is badass, clearly, so no worries there. She's shown an amazing level of resilience and desire to continue in the face of the new and overwhelming challenges that this trek has thrown at her. Cost is still the main factor in finishing, and buying a ticket to Memphis will probably cut into that cost, but I can eat cheaper than I have been... I think. As my mom pointed out: these things are for the living. If I feel like I should be there: I should be there.
   So I'm sitting in the Dartmouth College library surrounded by dapper college students and professors alike. I'm wearing increasingly-sketchy-looking hair on my face, and smelling like someone who doesn't have access to running water... I'm going to go find a shower.

More later on why Hanover is amazing despite it's lack of a hiker-hostel.

RIP Grandad
<3
Andrew

The Kindness the Strangers

Hey darlins. The good news is that we are FINALLY through Maine! I am writing this post in New Hampshire!! Can't you feel the difference? It took a lot longer than we would have liked, but 6 weeks later we have the first state crossed off our list and 300 miles under our hip belts. There isn't any bad news persay, but we do now have to conquer The White Mountains, which most agree are 100 miles of rough terrain, drastic ups and downs (aka lots of 1000+ foot climbs and descents), and large stretches of hiking above treeline, which means bad weather is a lot worse.

First I want to give major shout outs of gratitude. The last few days of Maine were a REAL struggle for me. I didn't know if I could do it, but I DID! I hiked the "hardest part of Maine" with my funny feet and bruised legs and if that is all I ever did, I would be incredibly proud of myself. Again this is said after spending two nights in a bed, on the trail I was convinced I was quitting after I finished Maine. Not quitting the whole trail, but I did not feel ready to proceed from Maine to the equally difficult New Hampshire without a really long break. I crave the parts of the trail that I haven't seen yet, the trail with some mountains, not many massive mountains every day, the ones with an actual trail you actually walk, as opposed to the ones we deal with which are essentially bouldering while climbing up or down 1000 feet within a mile. Anyway my feet are still killing me (the boots we bought me were a disaster, and we had to return them the next day and spend an afternoon hitching to town) my body is bruised ( I have an epic bruise on my butt that Andrew took a picture of and then just accidentally showed the whole hostel) and I felt like I had really reached my edge. Again I really want to hike more of this trail, but starting is Maine is so brutal, you get all the hardest stuff first, it's freakin discouraging. Then I got to town and picked up a package from three girlfriends filled with an MP3 player, food goodies and words of encouragement, which instantly lifted my heart. Big thanks to Amy, Christine, and Melinda, they packed this box full of lara bars, via coffee, soft socks, wonderful music, and enough snacks to possibly get us through The Whites. They also wrote notes that I really needed to read, notes reminding me to push on even as times get tough. Also just remembering that people love and support us, how quickly I forget this on the trail.

Though the package made my day I still was not convinced to try the White Mountains. Andrew and I discussed him doing The White Mountains without me, while I tried to do work for stay in a town and wait for him to finish. I also REALLY wanted more than one day off. We hiked 7 miles to get into Gorham, and were planning on only taking one "zero" which in no way felt like enough. In this world if you only take one zero, you spend your day running errands for resupply, catching up on emails, figuring out gear and planning the next days of hiking ahead. A "real zero" should entail naps, movies, soaking your feet and general R and R. Anyway our first night in town we went out to dinner with two other southbounders, and spent hours talking about the trail, my reasons for not desiring to conquer The Whites at the moment, and the constant compromises that come with hiking as a couple with drastically different skill levels. The two hikers, Melodee, a darling woman in her sixties we met our first day and Sharkey, a guy we met in Monson who had been hiking North with his girlfriend, and is now yo-yoing (which means he completed the trail going north and has now turned around and is going to hike the trail southbound) were great sounding boards. We all laughed, joked and shared stories about the ups and downs, literally, of trail life. We also talked at length about finding the right balance of Andrew and I both getting our needs met. How my 'edge,' physically and mentally out here is so much shorter than Andrew's and how that is neither bad or good, but it can be hard to figure out a way for everyone to feel good. Sharkie very much related to our dilemmas and understood why I may not want to do The Whites right now. He was surprised that after 6 weeks of doing this, we had only taken two real zeros, and reminded me that he had done the whole trail several times and Maine and New Hampshire really are the hardest states. He suggested we take a few zeros, not just one and I agreed though financially we knew we could not afford such a luxury. So he offered to pay for one night for us to stay at the hostel, just so I would get an extra day of rest. In. fucking. credible. That generosity was enough to push me over the edge and I've decided to try The Whites. I'm still not sure I'll finish them, but I've had too many hikers encourage me to try them, and there are many options if I end up needing to get off the trail early.

The hiker community is absolutely one of the main reasons I'm still on the trail. One real blessing of this trail is the constant, daily interaction with strangers we experience and how most hikers really want to help when they can. How often do you interact with strangers on a daily basis, much less bond over shared experience? Out here no matter who you are and where you are coming from, we are all hiking the same mountains. If not for the support and repeated generosity of the people we have met, I would not still be on this trail. In my regular life, I get constantly annoyed and disheartened by people, I question whether most people are just selfish pricks. But here on the trail I believe people are good, kind, and capable of miraculous things. That, I would say, is a wonderful gift this trail has given me.

So tomorrow we head out for The Whites, though rain is predicted from Tuesday to Thursday. I am not sure I will finish them, but goshdarnit I will at least start them.
Also we've been informed that Internet in New Hampshire on the trail is hard to find and expensive when you do. So we will do our best to post pics and updates, though it may take us a while to get through the next 100 miles and may not post until we are done. But just like Arnold, WE'LL BE BACK.

Thanks again for all the support. The struggles of life are not easy, which is exactly why we learn so much from them. Trying to keep that in my heart in the miles ahead.

Not crying every day BITCHES!!!

Hey Guys and Gals,
   So as always we have lots to catch up, and I want to keep everyone updated with our journeys, but equally desire to sit on my butt watching bad TV while icing my legs and eating the free ice cream at the "hostel" we are staying at.
So first I want everyone to know I'm not crying everyday! It's been at least two weeks since I started being able to climb these mountains without the tears rolling down my face. That said, my feet are still a big fucking problem, and there are some days where I do great most of the day, but by days end my feet bring those familiar salty drops back to my face. (They still hurt in the morning, warm up for a few miles, then hurt around mile 8) Still rolling my ankles every few days, and they are pretty much in a permanent state of swollen. My knees, especially the right one, gets pretty painful by days end, and having a 2 mile descent that goes down about 2000 feet never helps that. As we get closer to finishing Maine, we climb at least one, usually two or three mountains a day, and often have a notch (aka gap) in the middle so we go up 2000 feet, down 1500, up another 1000, on a daily basis. Still averaging 10 miles a day (again the occasional 6 mile or 13 mile!) which feels good to me but is still a snails pace compared to 90% of the people hiking this trail.

So as Andrew mentioned we are going to try a few new tactics, given I still am having a lot of "hiking pains" and he is having almost none. First is these massive sturdy men's hiking boots I bought which will protect my feet and joints from feeling every rock and root in Maine. Also we may try to give him a little more food weight, and lighten the load of my pack. I've been against him carrying extra weight from the start, I mean I want to carry my share, but a couple things helped me see that him carrying extra weight will hopefully do us both some good. I want to get to the point where we can carry the same pack weight, but he has had two years of working and living outside to acclimate his body to these conditions. He is also a man with no body fat, one solid muscle from top to bottom. I am definitely carrying a little extra weight on my body, and then just not used to this much wear and tear. My body knows how to eat and exercise for like an hour, so its still getting used to all this. Also while he is very patient, it's hard for him to go the speed I need to go to not hurt myself, so we are hoping that a heavier pack may give his body an idea of the what a physical struggle it is for me to do this. Aka he sympathizes with my pain, but feels none of his own, and that is of course a hard dynamic. He really has been a sport, but when you are hiking partners coming from such different places, it is a constant struggle to stay on equal footing, as it were.
Anyway we hope these adjustments will help, because we are still going slower than we would both like, and this constant pain is getting pretty fucking annoying.

But on to happier things, I've written plenty about the hard parts, and most of them are still hard, but there is a lot of great experiences to be had. I never thought I would climb a mountain, much less 20. I can't even count how many mountains I've climbed, and we are now about 24 miles from finishing Maine! The "hardest 24 miles of Maine" they say and  in about two days we will be hitting Mahoosuc's Notch which most say is "hardest mile on the AT" (btw I'm really tired of hearing hardest mile or section on the AT about the sections I'm about to do) and I'm both scared and also a little excited. The first two weeks of this journey every step felt impossible, the climbs felt overwhelming and the descents felt like dancing with death. But now I see massive rock boulders I have to climb up or down and I know I can do it. I still get scared, I still hurt myself a lot, but I know I am capable of more than I was a month ago. And that feels pretty good.

One of my favorite parts of hiking this trail have been the people I've met along the way. Sure, there are still WAY too many dudes, and I'm so sick of dudes I may have to surround myself with only women for like a month when I get back, but the AT is a treasured trail and so many people are in awe at our attempt that they try to help in anyway we can. We've never waited more than 45 minutes for a hitch. Many times we simply cross the road and within minutes someone pulls over, happy to take us to town or back to the trailhead and wants to help us figure out the best market to go to, tell us how to get around town, or where we may find a free shower. The people who run these little hostels in these TINY towns are gems, spending years of their lives making sure backpackers have a homelike place to rest their weary legs and minds. (When we say tiny towns, we are talking one gas station/grocery store/restaurant no stoplight, library/town hall type places). We met a couple the other day who gave us 10 bucks, and said "Enjoy your next pint, beer or ice cream on us! We think it's so great you are doing this!" It felt a bit weird taking money from a stranger, but every bit helps and Ill always take cash handed to me.

The place we stayed in Andover the last two nights is called "The Cabin" and is run by the SWEETEST older couple, who must be at least in their 70's. It is a three story log cabin that they live in and then open their home to guests. The women who runs the place cooks breakfast and dinner every night (for a small charge) and happily offers leftover for free when available. We got free chicken, ice cream and ham! She said she has tried to shut down this place for a few years (her husband who used to help in the business had a stroke so can no longer be an equal partner in running the place) but "people keep coming and we just can't turn them away" So it's really cool and inspiring to meet people like her all the time who love the AT and the people who hike it so much. Also this place had an ACTUAL bed (most hostels have crap camp matress, some don't even have sheets and make you use your sleeping bag, some haven't had clean sheets, etc) with real pillows and I finally slept for a full 8 hours, which I don't think I've done since I've been on the trail. When you sleep outside you are thankful for ANY sleep you get, but you never get a straight 8 hours. You are luckily to sleep a few hours without someone or some noise waking you up.

The people we met, the views we have seen, make the days spent hiking in the rain, the pain that seems unbearable, and the junk food-palooza all worth while. Or at least today it does. I am still unsure of my ability to complete this trail, financially and spiritually. I know I will get through Maine, and that feels pretty damn good. Not every day feels worth it, some days (aka hiking in the rain so that you are are so wet your feet are pruning and you can't stop to eat because it's raining so hard) I just make it through. Then some days I climb three mountains all over 3700 feet, look at the 360 view of lakes and clouds and forget why I would ever stop climbing the mountains is front of me. Anyway I am still a mess of emotions, but I feel the good creeping in more. Please note this is written after two days of being in a town, sleeping in a bed and eating real food. If I were to write a blog post after being back on the trail for 6 days, it would probably contain the sentence, fuck this fucking trail and also nature can blow me and I hate all the things.

Well we are heading back into the wild in a few hours, so I'm gonna go ice while I can. Much love to all who read, comment, and follow our journey. Yall's support makes a world of difference.

Nutrition: a constant battle

   While on the trail one of the biggest struggles is to carry the weight of the calories that will sustain us. More food = more weight. Carrying more weight = burning more calories = needing more food = carrying more weight = ~sigh~ you gather our predicament?
   Also the ratio of fat to carbs to protein is hard to nail down.
   Before I left for the trail I started eating meat again after almost a decade of vegetarianism. I was SURE that I would need so much more protein, and that meat would be the way to get it. So I bought a dehydrator. I became a regular at the old fashioned butchery, called The Chop Shop, that serves what I call 'healthy meat' (read: hormone free, antibiotic free, local <less than 100 miles>, and generally treated well while it was alive). And lots of beef jerky was made!
   It's delicious.
   But then I discovered a series of articles on thru-hiker.com by nutritionist Brenda L. Braaten PhD (she's got a name, so she must exist, right?). What I learned is that long distance hiking is not body building (high protein) and it's not distance running (high carbohydrate) it's long distance hiking. Turns out I need a 50/35/15 diet: 50% carbs, 35-40% FAT, and only 10-15% protein.
   Woah.
   Suddenly I'm walking through grocery stores and looking at nutrition labels in entirely new ways: I'm paying attention to fat content! And not like most people! I'm trying to find the products highest in fat. Bread? Pssht! Give me those ritz crackers that pack a punch of 10g fat/serving. Tuna packed in water? what's wrong with you Chicken of the Sea? Give me tuna packed in OIL! I thought surely I'd be snacking on cream cheese, but was dissapointed to find it has LESS fat than standard cheddar. And most dissapointing of all: the cheapest high-fat foods??? Debbie cakes/ cinnamon buns/ nutty bars... etc. All the crap I'd normally avoid b/c it's killing me! (Though ice cream has always been the exception to my 'no foods that don't feed me' rule).
   All the good fats (fruits, nuts, healthy oils) are the most expensive :(
   One of the things I did right while planning this trip was to take advantage when Lara Bars were on sale (those things are only ~225 calories a piece, but are built of simple, healthy ingredients: mostly cashews and dates. Yum :). Sadly, it was always the same flavor on sale, so every care package comes with 10 or so bars that Lyss is tired of eating. Bummer for her. Yummer for me :)
   So, daily, the diet looks like this:

Breakfast: oats for me, pop-tarts for Lyss, who is sick of oats

Snack: Larabars &/or nuts and chocolate &/or beef jerky

Lunch: pepperoni slices and cheese for me, cheese and chocolate chips for Lyss

Snack: snickers and/or debbie cakes

Dinner: Knorr Sides and/or Ramen, which are gross, and gross for us, but lightweight and quick-to-cook (plus, Ramen is fried in oil :))

After-dinner snack: hot chocolate with olive oil for added fat.

When we go into towns, the fruits and veggies we crave are usually super expensive. So we just try to eat a lot of whatever we can get our hands on. Like the bowl of ice cream I just polished off while writing this :)

Ideas for ways to turn the same-ole, same-ole into delicious variety? Any tips/help would be appreciated!
Mom: I'll give you a call soon to let you know what you can send that would be a big help!

Still in Maine :)

   Well, sadly I'm still struggling to load pictures on the random computers I end up using. Right now We're at "The Cabin" in Andover, Maine. The Cabin was bought in the early '90s by a newly retired couple named Margery and Earl (trail names Honey and Bear) who have now spent so much of their retirement running a backpacker hostel that they might never get to rest.
   As she encourages me to eat some shepherds pie leftovers or the moose tracks ice cream they recently bought too much of, Honey (who must be almost 80) explained, "We've tried to shut it down a few times, but people just keep showing up!"
   It's a beautiful house, though, and I'm happy we're taking a zero here. There's a greenhouse attached, movies to watch (plenty of complimentary microwave popcorn!), and a large dining room for busy season. Right now there are only 4 hikers here, us included, so we ate breakfast in the breafkast nook with Honey and Bear: pancakes, sausage, eggs, and OJ, all prepared by Honey, for only $5: A hiker's dream :)
   We chose a private room upstairs for $35 flat. The basement houses the 'hiker bunkhouse' ($20/bed), complete with living room setup, movies to watch, a full kitchen, and a washer/dryer. They've even got boxes of clothes for hikers to wear while their clothes are in the wash! (I picked a very loud pair of tie-dye skinny jeans and a blue t-shirt, appologies now for not posting the picture, which would surely make your day)
   Maine continues to be challenging and beautiful. We've encountered our first couple of 'notches,' which are just steep valleys between mountains, called 'gaps' in the south.

{Reminder: The Appalachian Trail was never meant to be thru-hiked! When all the little trails were connected into one contiguous trail, it was mostly for organizational and preservation purposes. The idea for the trail sprang up in 1921. It wasn't until '68 that the trail was completed and named the first National Scenic Trail. And still it took a decade for the National Park Service to START getting involved, helping to protect a 100 foot wide 'corridor:' 50 ft to either side of the trail. So when Earl Schaffer became the first person to through-hike the trail in 1948... no one believed him.}

   Lysandra's feet still hurt pretty often, but two days ago we did our first 13 mile day! What can I say? Girl goes from claiming she "can't" hike a mountain to covering 3 in 13 miles: she's badass. 'Nuff said.
   While I'm doing my best to empathize with her foot pain, my natural reaction is to be more solution oriented. The 'solution' I've been pinning my hopes on for a few days? Screw lightweight shoes: Lysandra is getting new boots. So this morning we woke up and ate the homemade breakfast that was put in front of us, before catching a shuttle (courtesy of Don, Honey's 58 year old son) to Bethel: bustling metropolis to the south; I think they have a traffic light!
   First thing I hear the clerk say when I walk into the outdoor store in Bethel? "You have no idea how many times I've seen that exact same outfit."
   About an hour later she's tried on every boot in the store and settled on a hefty, durable-looking pair of Merrels. I also chose to Boot Up; my trail runners, which were not new to begin with, are toast. Luckily the lightest weight boot in the store was on discount by the front door. They had one pair left: my size, exactly :) This afternoon there will be a lot of moose tracks ice cream eaten, many movies watched, many calories gained (curiously, after walking past actual moose scat day in and day out, eating a free bowl of 'MooseTracks' is no less appealing). Tomorrow we continue walking.

Quick Check-in!

Hey friends :) I'm sitting in the library in Rangeley, smelling like a hiker, trying to figure out how to put some pictures up here! Can't decide if it would be better to use a remote photo-share site and just put links on the blog, or just slap a bunch of photos up, which is what I'm going to do right now b/c it's easier for me :o)

   So we're 32 or 33 days in! We took a zero in Stratton, ME b/c Lysandra's ankles and feet needed some much deserved rest, and also because we woke up to a horrendous thunderstorm (literally, thunder that shook the seat I was sitting in, everyone in the room jumped!) that continued for the entire day; 13 hours of rain = I'll happily sit and watch movies and eat Ben & Jerry's <yum>.

   The terrain here in Maine continues to be rooty and rocky, but we hit a couple of Mtns recently that have mixed a bunch of crazy steep climbs, with not so challenging trail (actual dirt!). I just posted a pic on facebook of us standing on one of these mountains called "The Horn."

   ...and we're continuing to meet a plethora of eclectic folk out here on the trail. Many are poor, some are downright homeless, some have ten grand to blow on this experience. I'm constantly asking people about their tattoos (b/c I'm always fascinated by what people choose to get imprinted on their bodies) and we met one woman about a week ago that had a tattoo of a kite on the middle finger of her right hand. When I asked her about it, she took a breath, kind of shrugged, and said, "Oh, I was in a cult." Kinda like 'whaddaya gonna do, eh?' She went on, "I got out, or escaped or whatever, about 3 years ago and when my oldest son went to get a tattoo he took me along to get a cover up, and I came out with this kite."
   Fascinated as I was, I couldn't think of any non-rude questions, so I don't have the full story.

   Other than interesting people, the days are starting to fall into a routine:
Breakfast,
Pack up the tent if we set it up,
Filter water
Hike, snack, Hike, lunch, Hike, snack,
Arrive at shelter or campsite: I set up tent and inflate mattresses while Lyss cooks dinner. (Dinner usually consists of boiling water and throwing stuff in, but she claims to enjoy the cooking aspect of it, and that's fine with me :)
Journal and/or chat with shelter peeps
Sleep not-so-well, b/c of creaky air mattresses or snoring shelter-sharers
wake up and do it all again.

That's the life! Pictures don't seem to be working right now, but I'll see if I can post some on facebook, which I'm pretty sure everyone reading this can see.

Week Three, and stuff

Hey Yall! Its me, the girl who falls all the time, has no idea what she is doing and changes her mood about 37 time a day. Yep, I'm a gem :)

Lets see, I'm not good like Andrew with his nightly journaling. I basically get to camp, elevate my feet, eat as quickly as possible and fall asleep within the first few pages of Harry Potter. So I'll do my best on catch up, but you have been warned this will be both scattered and random.

Last post I complained about, well a whole freaking lot, and you will all be happy to learn.....I still have all those complaints. No, I kid, I kid... things are getting a bit brighter. First off, the view and landscape of Maine continue to be unreal. And of course we have no pictures to show you, that would be helpful, but trust us, our eyeballs are dancing in delight on a daily basis. Andrew had a birthday a few days ago (huzzah he is 30!) and we had a tent site on a large flat rock right over a massive lake. So we listened to loons (which sound like wolves at times and wacky birds at others) and had a cool lake breeze blowing on us all night. Plus I snuck come Reeses big cups into my food bag and surprised him with chocolate peanut butter goodness. I know its not much, but out in the woods, every unexpected treat means the world.

Lets see, in general Andrew is a still a rockstar, happy energetic, and because of the "slower pace" I need to take has very little muscle and joint pain compared to many other hikers (the beginning is often painful). Right now we are hiking about 8-10 mile days, every now and then we do a short 5 mile or a long 12 mile day. The 15-25 mile days that so many of the hikers we meet talk about still seem insane to me, but I know I must find a way to get there or we will be hiking this damn trail until spring. And by damn trail, I mean really freakin incredible challenging trail I hate/love depending on what minute it is. 

My ankles and knees continue to have serious problems with the vagabond lifestyle. I'm assuming if they could speak they would say things like, "WTF, we are used to sitting around watching 'Parks and Rec,' then cooking for 4 hours, and then more sitting, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US?" I'm pretty sure I have plantar fascitis in both feet, which basically means that my feet hurt a lot at least 50% of the time. I was fairly sure I had it in my right foot before we left, but my left foot is catching up, so a typical day for my feet goes as such: Wake up and they hurt A LOT. The first few steps of the morning feel like my foot is a massive bruise and every step is terrible. Then they feel ok until I put my shoes and pack on. (For anyone who cares, The hiking shoe I'm wearing is a men's running shoe with a 'Superfeet' insole, which may or may not be a good thing. Sadly, finding an outdoor store is almost impossible out here, much less one that has a perfect shoe for my incredibly wide, flat foot. I could not find a women's hking shoe that fit my foot, and I tried three stores in Asheville before we left. Anyway, shoe tangent end). So the first mile of walking is pretty painful, but bearable. Then my feet warm up and I have about 5-7 miles that are ok, of course depending on climbs, terrain, etc. Then pretty much regardless around mile 7-9 my feet start feeling like massive bruises again and it just gets more and more painful until I stop walking. As you can imagine, THIS IS REALLY FRUSTRATING. I continue to try and "ice" my feet and ankles (aka put them in all the cold Maine rivers and elevate them when possible) but the people I talk to with feet issues, specifially PF(plantars) have stated it just hurts and always kinda will. So great......or NOT great at all. I do feel stronger in my legs, but still anything over 10 miles is so overwhelming mentally and physically. Sigh.

Speaking of lakes, here is a funny/gross story. About four days ago Andrew and I were stopping for lunch at a ford (where you have to take your shoes off, croc up, and cross a river) when we spotted a cooler! In the woods coolers usually mean trail magic, and as it happens we stumbled apon the last two sodas in the cooler! That lifted our spirits tremendously as we crossed the river, and then decided to enjoy our sodas and lunch on the rocks with our feet soaking in the river. We both commented on how warm the water was, noting it was probably because it was kinda slow moving. We sat eating bagels, cheese, and fritos and talking to some lady NOBOs (Trail names Fruit Loop and Rook) that crossed the river as we lunched. We talked to them for a while, as I especially tried to pick their brains about hiking the trail as a female, clothes that work for them etc (All my clothes are wrong for the trail, lots of chaffing, etc, but anyhoo) I made them laugh about the common "pain is weakness leaving your body" macho mentality of many of the hikers on the trail and they tried to assure me things will get better, ladies can do this, and everyone has a hard time in the beginning. We headed toward our packs, our spirits particularly high after the great convo and the much needed sugar-rush from the cola, and sat down to dry our feet and return them to the smelly grossness that is a hiking shoe when I noticed a quarter sized brown spot on my upper calf. At first I thought it was dirt, so I went to wipe it off, but it wouldn't budge. Why? Because it was a LEECH!!! Andrew was a few feet away, but I would have screamed regardless. "UGHHH!!!!! LEECHES baby!" -I shudder as I begin to scan my legs and discover they are EVERYWHERE. I have several larger ones on my legs and then my feet are covered in tiny pinky nail size ones. By covered I mean, literally, between every toe. Leeches, as I discovered, are slipperly little bastards that are very hard to get off. I start trying to breathe deep, because I can feel the panic attack rising up inside me. Andrew, winning boyfriend of the year, comes over and helps me pry off these mini demons, trying and failing not to laugh at the overdramatic reaction that I am of course having at the site of my feet covered in leeches. He then looks at his own feet and has a few, but not nearly the leech-fest covering my poor tootsies. Also fun fact, even though leeches don't hurt, the cuts they make to suck yer blood do not seem to stop bleeding. Like, ever.

Switching to a better note, I do feel like I am getting stronger. I still feel insane most days, but I'm getting more used to sleeping outside, eating total junk food (sounds good, but honestly all we want most days are fruits and vegetables, junk food makes you feel gross, but it's cheap and light), and spending my days pushing my body to it's limit. Yesterday was actually a pretty acurate example of what hiking the AT is like. We woke up around 6am to a wet tent, not because it rained, but we camped in a grassy field so our tent was covered in dew. So we had to wait a while until the sun came out and dry it so we didn't have to unpack a wet tent that night. Hence we got a late start and about 10 minutes into walking we discovered a giant field of blueberries!! So clearly we stopped and picked about 2 cups of blueberries, giddily joking about how "one goes in the cup, and one goes in the mouth" and saved them for the top of the mountain we were about to climb. We set out to do a 8-10 mile day or so, and knew we had a long 5 mile mountain to climb. I was feeling good for the first three miles, struggling to climb the mountain, but keeping a slow and steady pace up the tedious upward climb. Then the last two miles just started breaking my spirit. Just when we would reach a peak, we would descend a few hundred feet, only to climb another 500 feet or so (Please note most mountains are like this. Its not just ONE big climb, it's lots of up and down, freakin mountains....) Once we reached the top, my feet and ankles were screaming, and I felt tired more than excited at the beautiful view. Andrew was pumped up and full of energy, which I could not fully appreciate in my exhausted state. The blueberries and the view eventually brought up my mood, though I still get so frustrated/sad/stupidly hard on myself when I let a hard climb sour my mood. The descent down the mountain was a short and steep 1.3 miles which is easier on the muscles, but much harder on the joints. And we have to take them slow because it is a rooty, rocky shit show and you don't want to break anything. We then arrived at a lean-to for a quick snack break and foot elevation, but decided to push on, hoping to get as close to Caratunk as possible as to make our walk in the morning a short one. Since we had no pre-designated tent site, we ended up walking an extra 5 miles until we found anything resembling a flat surface to tent on, making our day a 12 mile one. The last two miles I was in pretty unreasonable amounts of pain, and pushed on because I knew if I just dropped down on the trail the mosquitoes would eat me alive. We started setting up camp around 7:30 aka mosquitos buffet hour. I could barely stand, and even with bug spray was being attacked by those tiny blood suckers so stuffed half a bagel and a fruit snack in my mouth before retreating for the tent, leaving myself without enough food. Andrew braved the conditions a little longer, managing to eat an actual dinner of salmon and crackers, while I flossed and brushed inside the safety of tent. Then we set up the inside of the tent and I lay down and tried to quietly weep because even while lying down my feet were spasming (or something, Im still not sure what is going on). The best way I can describe the pain is if you have a bruise and someone punches it, that immediate pain, it feels like that is rippling up and down my foot. Andrew kindly offered to rub them, but I was in so much pain, I just tried to fall asleep. So yeah, that's kinda a day on the trail, beautiful one moment, painful the next, always an adventure. Man, I sound kinda like a downer. I'm working on it yall, I really am. This is hard stuff.

And just in case yall are wondering a typical day for us food wise goes a little something like:
Breakfast: Poptarts for me, Oatmeal for Andrew
Snack: Snickers and GORP (luckily that is almonds and nuts we get sent from home, with some raisins and peanut butter M &Ms)
Lunch: bagel with cheese or salmon, fritos or chips, perhaps some jerky
Snack: Jerky, GORP, Lara bar when we are luckily
Dinner: Lipton sides (which are, for the record pretty gross. But again light to carry and filling) or mac and cheese.
Sometimes we get a dark chocolate bar as a treat, but in general, we just eat crap. If anyone would be interested in sending us delicious (and lightwieght) camping meals, treats, snickers (the perfect hiker snack), delicous fruit and nut bars (like lara bars or pro-bars) etc, just comment on the blog or email us and we can let you know the next post office we will be hitting.

Ok I can't write anymore, I have an ice bag calling my name. As always we will post when we can, thank you for keeping up on our adventures. Love the comments, please keep them coming.

Make like a baby and HEAD OUT!

   We're leaving Monson!! ...again.
   After paying for a shuttle to get us back to where we left the hundred miles the first time (for the rolled ankle), we hiked out that last 15-or-so miles (over two days) and ended up in back in Monson. 'Well, time for a shower and a sleep(!)' we figured. So we stayed the night and now are preparing to make like babies and 'head out.'
   SouthBound!! :)
   Some interesting things happened each time we were in Monson. Hopefully I'll have more time later, but right now I'm just trying to communicate some logistical and 'We're safe/healthy' type info for any worriers in our respective families.
   Planning on hiking just under 10 miles today (Lyss' suggestion, as I try my best to let her set the pace) and about the same again tomorrow.
   Hope you're all well :)
      Andrew

Andrew's Journal: Day 10!

   Okay, skipping a few days because we're about to catch a ride back to the trail from this hostel and I'm running short on time. Fun things happen every day but, they're probably more interesting to me than to the general public, and they're already in my journal. Besides, I'm not sure how much time I want to spend re-writing journal entries.
   It's possible, as I'm coming through towns more often, that it will seem less time consuming to me to re-hash my experience. So many interesting moments, and almost takes as long to write about them as to live them!Well... we'll just take it as it comes, shall we?

Day 10:
Logan Brook Lean-to to Carl A. Newhall Lean-to: 7.2 miles

   I woke up in my tent to the sound of Charlie telling the story of his nights sleep, or lack thereof. Charlie, who we met yesterday, wants to hike the entire 2,200 miles in 100 days and I have dubbed him 'Hundred.' A lot of trail names get thrown around (I'm pretty sure I'm not going to keep 'Bear Bait,' the suggestion of a NOBO who heard my bear story) and I was pretty pumped when this guy said he'd keep the moniker I'd given him. Just over a week into the less trafficked route and I've already given someone a name to live by for 6 mon... well... a hundred days anyway. 
   Apparently one of the ever-present shelter mice fell from a rafter directly onto Hundred's face in the middle of the night. The mouse woke him (obviously), but it was hiker hunger that got him up and cooking at 1:00am. After cooking up his second batch of noodles, this kid was draining his boiling pasta water into the stream and a slip of his hands sent his noodles floating away from him. One of those moments when I had to bite my tongue: ignorant as this kids decision to negatively impact the ecosystem was, if I go off on him, he's likely to stick to the same behavior to spite the raging hippie who told him off. So I try to delicately mention that he shouldn't be doing that, but with no follow up questions about why, I'm skeptical that he took my reminder to heart.
   The northbound section hiker who arrived last night was in busy panic-mode this morning, warning us that every element of the next three days is THE WORST/HARDEST section of the entire trail. All her friends who have hiked the trail have said so, she claims. I try to take this advice with a grain of salt, but it's discouraging to hear nonetheless.
   This morning, Patrick (a 33yo whose parents have dehydrated home grown veggies, mixed them with rice, or couscous, or whatever, and vacuum sealed every individual serving, which they will then mail to him along the trail) shares with us some of his home-made snack bars, and we set out on our hike. As we were climbing the first of today's four mountains, the day started to get grey and Lyss' spirits plummeted. Near the top of White Cap Mtn (the only one of the for that would have a view if it weren't so cloudy)... it started to rain. Luckily, it didn't rain long or hard, but we pushed through the post-drizzle tree-pee without a snack, and settled down between the second and third mountains for lunch.
   In the afternoon another SOBO came up from behind us and introduced himself (with a big smile on his face) as Angry German, or A.G.for short. Caucasian male, haved head, big beard: typical A.T. hiker. He flew by us, but before long we saw him again, sitting with Patrick, who had passed us as we ate lunch and was now chowing down on a store-bought package of beef jerky that a weekend hiker had just given him in an act of hwat we will come to know as 'Trail Magic.'
   Not long after this, Lyss is cry-hiking again. It's an act I've become familiar with, but in my attempt to support her I've come to the conclusion that I'll have to wait before it's good joke-fodder. Suddenly I look up from my focused view of the roots and rocks in front of me because Lyss has fallen silent.
   "Moose," she says, and points.
   Just then I hear a whistle behind me that sounds human, but don't turn because I'm trying to identify this 'moose.'
   Behind us, his bird-whistle having gone unacknowledged, A.G. shouts, "Aah, Hey-Der!!" in a mock northern accent.
   "SSHHHT!" Lysandra 'shushes' him violently, cutting him off. "Moose," she says, pointing.
   I see it now, it's about 40' away, and I drop my pack as quietly as I can while simultaneously grabbing for my camera. The moose moves into the bushes, kind of away from us. Anticipating it's direction I head up the trail & try to snap a photo. When I turn off the trail I've totally lost sight of it, but it's not coming out where I expect it to, so I keep walking through the woods, in the general direction of where I think it's headed. About a minute goes by and, figuring it's gone I drop all attempts at stealth and shout, "I think it's gone!"
   "It's. Right. Here!" Lyss shout-whispers back in my direction.
   Now I'm in a pickle b/c I want to get back over there, and fast, but I know that kind of movement will scare it off. So, suddenly I'm tip-toeing as fast as I possibly can through the woods and when I'm about 20 feet from Lyss and A.G. I saw it.
   I froze, on tip-toe.
   The moose froze, 800 lbs of muscle on spindly little legs, looking like a blackened ham balanced on 4 toothpicks. But it was mostly behind a bush from where I was... so I crept forward. It was enough to bother the moose, who hopped across the trail, light and agile as a deer, right between Lyss and I, then stopped again. Now it's facing away from us, an slowly it turns it's head back to check us out.
   I know it's kind of a defensive stance, or a flight-ready pose. Like it's prepared to run if we do anything sketchy, but it's also still open to the possibility that we're safe. But it seemed, at the time, kind of like it was just showing us it's rear end... then looking back to make sure we saw it. Maybe to gauge the expression on our faces now that our photo-op has been thwarted? Then it walked off after about ten seconds, clearly sensing no threat, but also maybe showing a sense of judgement? Like, 'Okay, you've been subjected to my butt long enough.'
   As the three of us were moving on to the shelter, I decided not to share my suspicions about the moose's intentions. A.G. seems like a nice guy, if a bit full-on. His military experience has obviously impacted his personality: wide eyed, loud speaking voice, and habit of repeating himself, as if not realizing that everyone had heard him the first time.
   The shelter was right around the corner, and after we had been there about five minutes, chatting amicably about outdoor gear and sleep systems, the moose showed up again. Just hopped on by, right around the corner of the shelter. As suddenly as it had appeared, it bolted in to the thick brush, as if startled by us. It crashed down the hill to the river, where we heard a moose-sized sploosh into the water. Then silence.
   The three of us just looked at each other, kind of like after that tree fell, just confirming, that we had all, in fact, noticed the giant moose that had just tried to sneak past our camp unnoticed, then balked mid-sneak.
   Moose got NO tact.
   Suddenly it occurred to me that the idea of a moose teamed up with a squirrel to do espionage really is funny, and I wondered just how many precious years of Rocky and Bullwinkle I've missed out on.
   As the evening rolled on, I keep talking to A.G. about gear and his hammock system. I tell him about a NOBO hiker we met at White House Landing named "Walking Home" - a hippy-looking guy we overheard on his cell phone talking about hiking the 'purest form' of the trail, whatever that means. Walking home had spent big bucks online buying gear made of Cuben Fiber, the newest in high-tech ultralight-weight materials. Turned out he's been a sales rep for Coca-Cola for 7 years and is only going to Grad. school so he'll be more appealing to the company for promotions and other such "advancement" (though I question the term in this context).
   At this  point in my story, one of the two NOBOs who had walked up to the shelter and identified himself as 'Pretzel' chimed in. "Walking Home! HAH! What a joke! I just about saw that guy get his ass beat in a bar a couple hundred miles back."
   What followed was a bit of pretty typical northbound-culture drama, centering around differing A.T. philosophies: How to hike the A.T.

{sidenote: Most people say "hike your own hike" but there are many strong opinions about what a 'real' thru-hike is. Some people want to touch every single white blaze trail marker on the A.T. while others don't give a damn if they hitch-hike 10 or 20 miles as long as they more-or-less walk 2000 miles in the appalachians within 12 months. Still others just come out for a couple weeks at a time each summer until they've seen the whole trail, settling for a series of section hikes. Some insist that you have to carry your life on your back (one guy this summer carried a tent 2000 miles that he never even used, opting for the shelter every night) while others take opportunities to 'slack-pack,' leaving their big pack at a convenient place and taking a smaller pack for the day when they can get their pack again that night. ...you get the point.}

   so the short version of this drama is that walking home paid all that money for a pack that weighs approximately 5lbs before food and water, yet was seriously harsh in  his criticism of a guy who slack packed for an (undeniably) abnormally long section of the trail. The slack packer in question is legally blind. Trail name: Bat. (you can imagine why he might want to carry a day pack when he can)
   By the end of the story, we're all but convinced that Walking Home hasn't been able to embrace the 'Hike you own hike" philosophy. But even though this anecdote might make him seem like the 'bad guy,' I can identify. I mean it's kind of like saying "live your own life." the implication being to let others live theirs. But I struggle to accept the inherent worth and dignity of someone who chooses to work for a giant mega-conglomerate corporation that sells sugar-water to a target market of children and the obese at 600% markup. Seems like a douchy, selfish choice based on a greedy desire for a bigger paycheck. Ayn Rand would be proud. But more importantly, in the time it takes me to puzzle it out (or write it down), I could probably be living my own life and consider my time 'better spent.'

   'Pretzel' seems to have no such hangups and criticizes loudly, but otherwise seems like a likeable guy. Early 20s, red goatee, witty and quick with his words, funny, sassy, and full of opinions,. You know, the type of guy who likes to give people a hard time, and is okay getting one in return. The quote of the evening came when Lysandra came to my 'defense' at one of Pretzel's jibes. I had picked up a rubber chicken (the object of a northbound collective 'relay' to the finish) and Pretzel said, "that's for NOBOs only, get your dirty SOBO hands off of it."
   Without missing a breath, Lyss spat back, "You better watch how you talk to my boyfriend before I slap that little red mouth of yours!"
   We all had a laugh at the quick mouth of my defender, and bedded down for the night.