Benton and Carson’s school already had a scheduled two-hour “late start” day, so Julie had planned to have breakfast at our house with the Homons (next door) and the Carlins (several more houses down). That, clearly, smelled like it was going to turn into an all-day event, which it did.

At one point, I stepped out of my home office to the following scene in our entryway:

Later, once I’d decided I definitely wasn’t heading into the office at all, I headed upstairs between calls to change into more casual clothes and found the following on our bed — ostensibly decompressing from outdoor activity by watching a little TV:

In order: Austin, Alana, Carson, Andrew, Nate, Jack (Benton was down the street building a fort out of chunks of ice at another neighbor’s house).

9/9/93 – Thur.

It’s just Buck and me at a tentsite tonight. It seems we have managed to do the impossible and find a designated campsite that has no weekenders within a half mile. Glen had some leg cramping problems that started yesterday afternoon. He was feeling better this afternoon, but still opted to stop a couple of miles short of where we had planned to go. He should catch us in Gorham on Sunday, as we are planning to get there Sunday morning, and he should still be able to get there Sunday afternoon.

I was able to get my maildrop at Mt. Washington today, but my boots somehow did not make it, so hopefully they will be in Gorham on Monday. We killed a good two hours on top of Mt. Washington trying to get all that straightened out, and Julie was in Houston, so I didn’t get to talk to her (by the way, more Buck-Julie similarities: both have had knee surgery, both have vanilla as their favorite yogurt flavor). The White Mountains are indeed spectacular, especially above treeline, and not a mile goes by that I don’t wish Julie were out here to enjoy them with me. She is such a special person to me, and I pray that 40 years from now I will be able to look back and be thankful that I only suffered one extended separation.

On to lighter things.

Buck and I both had a “falling” day. Buck won the sheer quantity award, but I managed to capture the creativity award, as I fell flat on my face while trying to put up my guidebook. As I went down, the guidebook went flying, and it took us several minutes of digging through the bushes to recover it. Buck managed to put a pretty big lump on her knee, and I scraped up my upper thigh a bit, but neither of us is any worse for the wear.

We are sharing a tent platform again tonight, and the wind has really picked up quite a bit. I managed to knock my pot off my stove while I was fixing dinner and trying not to let anything blow away, but I didn’t make too big of a mess. Buck was really worried that her rain fly was going to blow off in the night, and so she kept circling her tent and fussing over the guy lines (she has a North Face Tadpole, too). Finally, I pointed out to her that the fly was very securely attached to the tent, and since she was going to be in the tent, there was very little chance that it would blow away. I was really stating the obvious, but apparently the obvious had not clicked with her, because she got a rather sheepish look on her face and admitted that she now felt much better. Buck had done virtually no camping before she got on the A.T., and it sometimes shows. To her credit, though, she consistently is done with dinner and ready for bed before I am. On the whole, we’ve done a lot of laughing at ourselves and each other today. That, combined with beautiful weather as we hiked above treeline while climbing Mt. Washington, made it, on the whole, a good day.

But, Julie was not here and I did not even get to talk to her, so it was far, far away from being a perfect day.

9/1/93 – Wed.

I made it out of Hanover today and 17 miles to Trapper John Shelter by 4:30 PM. I hiked the last five miles with Buck, which, as always, was enjoyable.

Tomorrow, we’re only doing 12 miles to Hexacuba Shelter, which is supposed to be an interesting place.

My boots are starting to go at the seam on the left(?) heel, so it looks like replacement will be in order before the big “K.” Hopefully, Salomon will replace them sight unseen and I won’t have to deal with buying a new pair. It looks like Dad was right again.

No real insights or deep thoughts again today. My mind seems to be at Katahdin rather than back here with me on the trail.

7/30/93 – Fri.

Well, a good night’s sleep did seem to do the trick. We did 17.0 miles today, and Julie has decided to hike the two more days to her car rather than staying here (501 Shelter) while I slackpack to her car in one day and then drive back to get her. She still has a number of aches and pains, and she craters in the afternoon a lot like Dad and Dan did, but I think she has experienced the worst and realizes that things will not generally be that bad.

I am feeling much better about the A.T. now, and am now back to thinking that I will complete it. I think the extra time spent with Julie has been a good thing. Although it will still be tough to see her go, I have new and fresh memories to take along with me.

My boots are now completely, unquestionably, 100% shot to hell. The soles have practically no tread left, and a couple of days ago the stitching on the inner, right heel tore completely out. Barge cement has been unsuccessful in my attempts at repair. Two more days and it’s new boots for me!

It seems like I have been so close to wrapping up the second "volume" of my trail journal for so long that I am writing simply for the sake of filling pages, so, blank pages notwithstanding, I am going to start a new journal in Port Clinton.

7/5/93 – Mon.

This will be a short entry, as I did 26 tough milees today to get to punchbowl shelter, and I am tired. I got to John’s Hollow Shelter before 2:00, and it just wasn’t a nice enough place to kill an afternoon. I did drink five quarts of water between when I left this morning and when I arrived here this afternoon.

I’m staying with Possum, Crazy Hawk, and Mr. Wendal, all of whose entries I’ve been reading in registers for some time.

I met some interesting people today, including 3 guys who are day hiking the entire A.T. one weekend at a time, 2 members of the Natural Bridge ATC, and the 3 people I am staying in the shelter with this evening (more on them another time).

The string/cord solution on the boots worked not too well, but I used 3 strips of adhesive knit to just tape it, and that lasted about 8 miles very well before blowing out, so I think I’ll try that again tomorrow.

It looks like I may make Waynesboro by Thursday. Things to make sure I get there:

• Duct tape/barge cement
• Cortisone cream
• Toothpaste
• Insect repellent
• Moleskin
• Socks (?)
• Cord (?)
• Bootlaces
• H₂0 “stuff sack”
• Coleman fuel (?)

As always, I miss Julie very much.

It’s interesting, although not all that surprising, how much I was tracking time and mileage. Clearly, I had a watch, and I had my mileage book that I used to plan how far / how fast I would be travelling. At the same time, I bumped into people who were even more mileage-focussed than I was…but I was clearly closer to their end of the spectrum than I was to the “just-walk-happy-go-lucky” end. If I did it again today, I suspect I would have moved a bit closer to the mid-point on that spectrum. A bit.

7/4/93 – Sun.

21.9 miles today from Bobblet’s Gap Shelter to Thunder Hill Shelter.

I parted way with Gandalf today, and though I would be alone tonight, but, after I’d been here for about half an hour, a group of about ten kids (aged 15-18) and three fairly young adults. They’re all guys, and they’re from a place called “New Dominion” in Cumberland, Maryland. It sounds a lot like the place Uncle Steve used to work in Austin. They’re all troubled in some way or other, and teh program is meant to give them self-esteem, teach them how to express their feelings, and teach them how to cope with life. It’s really pretty fascinating. They have assigned duties and a lot of rules and rituals. They all have to to tuck their shirts in before they eat, for instance. Any one of the kids can call a “group meeting,” where they bring up whatever issue is bothering them, and they all discuss it. They’re having one right now, and it’s centered around one kid who apparently tends to be a quitter and who hurts a lot of people. The supervisor, who is probably in his late 20s, from Louisiana, who has a law degree and has been at New Dominion for three years (Al is his name) is really lighting into the kid (Ryan). It sounds pretty harsh, actually. I talked to Al earlier, and when I told him the A.T. is sort of my own visionquest, he said that this is the the third year of his visionquest, and he’s loving it. He plans to go into psychology, probably school, in another year or so. The kids seem pretty cool, overall. They all have input in these group meetings, and it all seems pretty valid. They talked earlier about everything from books they had read, to different “privileges” each of them had/didn’t have, to various runaway attempts that people had made. Oh, by the way, they do some sort of long distance backpacking each year somewhere (they’re going all the way from Waynesboro to Cloverdale this time). They also do a canoe trip each year. Enough on the New Dominion. Ryan is now in tears.

My left boot is continuing to give me trouble. The glue didn’t hold the sole on for more than about five steps this morning, so then I tried a heavy-duty thread/duct tape contraption that only lasted about a half a mile. So, then I broke down and hacked the toe off of one of my socks and slipped it over the toe, which lasted okay for the rest of teh day, but which won’t make it all the way to Waynesboro. I spent a good while tonight trying to bind it pretty well with string and wire. Whenever I find something that seems to work (if I can), I’ll take a picture of it. Which brings up a deeper point. Out here, a problem arises, there is the assumption, which is a reality, that it can be deal with, if not totally solved.

I learned from some southbounders that there were 4 beers in the spring here left by a weekender, which did a lot to hurry me on here. I had one when I arrived, and then the group showed up, which I mistook for a Boy Scout troop, at first. Well, Crazy Hawk and Mr. Wendal had told them about the beers, and the advisors were in a real hurry to find them and hide them (some of the kids had alcohol problems), so that was the big “Oops!” on my part. The one beer was good, though.

I miss Julie.

I actually remember that evening fairly well. The leaders had assured me that I was fine to stay in the shelter / write in my journal while they had their group meeting. Not knowing what to expect, I stayed. And, once things got kind of tense…it would have been more awkward for me to get up and leave.