...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.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
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 LifeCrisis 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!}
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
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!}
Friday, November 2, 2012
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 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!
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