7/21/93 – Wed.

I am starting this entry earlier than I normally do (4:45), but I made it the 15.5 miles from Harper’s Ferry to here (Rocky Run Shelter) by 3:30, and I have already pumped water and laid out my pad and sleeping bag. It’s too early to start dinner, and Cloud & Scout will probably be showing up later, so it seemed like a good time to write.

A quick recap of the past few days: Julie and I made it to Harper’s Ferry around 1:15 on Sunday, and killed time at the ATC H.Q. and hanging out with Roadrunner at the Hilltop Inn until 3:00, when gommie came to pick us up. We just hung around the farm that evening.

On Monday, I got a haircut in the morning, went and saw Dee in the afternoon, and then Julie and I went to see the movie In the Line of Fire .

Yesterday, I cleaned gear in the morning, and then we went to Harper’s Ferry and picked up Scout, Cloud, and a lady named Laura Lee (Lorely) (GA –> Harper’s Ferry) and brought them back to the farm where we ate Little Caesar’s pizza, peach cobbler, brownies, and ice cream. After we dropped them back in Harper’s Ferry, we went out to see Dee, and then, yesterday evening, Julie’s mom came out to the farm for dinner and to spend the night.

Did I say a quick recap?

The hiking today was pretty easy and uneventful. I got on the trail about 8:30, took well over an hour for lunch (I met a day hiker who plays duplicate bridge with Gommie), and still got here by 3:30, as I have already said.

I will say now that I will almost definitely not make an entry tomorrow night — Julie is going to meet up with me for the evening, and it will be my last time with her for several weeks. I am planning to hike 19.9 miles to Devil’s Racecourse Shelter.

And now, on to deeper things.

These Thoughts of Mine

As I walked away
And left you behind,
You really came with me
In these thoughts of mine.

And you sit with me now
With two glasses of wine –
A romantic encounter
In these thoughts of mine

And when I lay down in bed
At a half past nine,
You’ll be there beside me
In these thoughts of mine.

So worry not, my dear,
And our love will shine.
We are always together
In these thoughts of mine.

Farewell and Rememberance

I saw you yesterday, Dee, and I fear it may have been for the last time. Your time in this life is drawing to a close, and I feel that I need to tell you good-bye before it does. It was awkward in the nursing home yesterday — awkward for both of us, so I am turning to the written word to say my last farewell.

We’ve known each other for just over two decades now, Dee. For you, that has been two decades at the end of a long and active life, but for me it has been a lifetime.

I think of you most often now in snapshots — some pictures that actually exist, and some photographs that will forever be frozen in my mind.

You see, Dee, you’re a very photogenic person — your true character is never hidden, so that even the candid shot catches you in some position or act that is undeniably you.

I think of a picture taken after you had some cancerous tissue removed from your nose. You are seated on the porch at the farm with a wide, warm smile on your face, wholly un-self-conscious about the bandage across your nose. But you have never been self-conscious about anything, so the picture is fitting.

I see a picture of the two of us posing together for a picture — a young boy and his grandfather each wielding a rake. That picture sparks other memories, like the times you used to take me out for a golf lesson and lecture me on how important it was to have some sort of target for every practice swing, be it a dead leaf, a broken tee, or a weed growing out of the ground nearby. After a half hour or so lesson, you would point to a corner of the pasture that was covered in milkweeds and tell me to go over and take practice swings until that section of the pasture had been cleared. As blisters formed on my hands from hacking at weeds, I always wondered if I had been duped, but my golf game always did improve.

And then there are the audio snapshots. How many times did you interrupt me in mid-sentence to solemnly expound, “Young man, if you ever want to be successful in life, you’ve got to learn to articulate and enunciate .” Of course, you were right.

And do you remember how you would take your grandsons out into the pasture in the evening to count the cattle and look out at the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance as the sun set? You would always say that you liked to come out there in the evening and ask yourself, “What nice thing have I done for someone today that I didn’t have to do?”

“Ask yourself that,” you would say, “Don’t tell me what you come up with — just ask yourself.”

Oh, Dee, your wit and wisdom were unmatched by anyone in so many ways. You were a leader who led by showing respect for those you led — even if they were a bunch of young grandchildren piled into the back of your truck for a ride through the fields.

You were a charmer — always ready with a quick and witty reply for any situation.

And you were a gentleman. One of my favorite pictures of you was taken only a few months before you entered into the nursing home. It is a candid shot and one you have probably never seen, but you are kissing Julie on the hand as a farewell, and in that picture you are every bit the handsome, classy gentleman that I have known for all my life.

So, good-bye Dee. Your life on this earth will soon end, but i will spend the rest of mine missing you.

7/13/93 – Tue.

18.5 miles today to Pass Mountain Shelter. I got here shortly after 4:00 PM, and so far Roadrunner is the only other hiker who has shown up (it’s 8:00 PM now).

Which brings me to last night. Cloud and Scout arrived at about 9:30, and we managed to circle around each other in such a way that we all hit the taproom but missed each other in doing so. They were at my campsite when I got back from the taproom and from talking to Julie, but I had wound up drinking my one beer alone. The live entertainment was a guy who played guitar and banjo — some Scottish folk songs and some more “traditional” American stuff (“You Are My Sunshine,” “Oh, Susanna,” e.g.). I didn’t stay very long, but felt I got my $2.00 worth of satisfaction from the beer and the music.

I had some thoughts about Joe Van Dyck’s possible hostel in Burke’s Garden that I’m going to jot down now as a first pass at organization for a letter to “The Skipper” himself (Joe).

I think he’d be best off touting the place as a classier-type hostel — nicer but more expensive. The reason for this is that Levi Long’s is only a day’s hike farther and, dump that it is, it’s free. The low budget hikers will go there regardless.

Services that really should be offered: laundry, showers, Coleman fuel by the pint, maildrop capability, some degree of hiker resupply.

Other things that might attract hikers, too: home cooking; use of steam shower (possible extra charge), use of bicycles to tour Burke’s Garden.

Also, touting the B&B (or the hostel) as a place to take a day off with family or friends might be good (like Fontana Village).

For that bit about being “classier,” Elmer’s in Hot Springs would be a good model.

Also, it would be good for him to buy a copy of The Thru-Hiker’s Handbook so he can get a feel for what kind of blurb he can expect in that.

Finally, he probably ought to keep it simple at first — offer services that he knows won’t be too much of a burden on him — and then add on in future years as per hiker suggestions.

I have now decided to do the 24-mile days starting tomorrow and then have Julie hike with me for three days instead of two. It seemed silly for her to drive all the way out here and then just sit around for a day before I get to see her. Once again, I will be hiking with my mind in the future rather than in the present, but when Julie is in one and not the other, I can do nothing else.

6/28/93 – Mon.

First: last night I (we) stayed at Doc’s Knob Shelter, and I successfully completed my 26.8 mile day today & am staying at Pine Swamp Branch Shelter tonight. I’ve caught up with Gandalf, who is also here tonight, as well as a guy named Matt who is sort of northbound until the end of July. Jack (a.k.a. “Wild-Man Jack,” “The Mushroom Man,” “Rasputin,” or (his “official” name) “The Wayward Traveler”), showed up about 8:45. I haven’t seen him since just outside of Erwin, TN, when I spent some time trying to describe him. I was surprised to have caught him so quickly after the reunion in Georgia. “Captain” and “Jumpy,” whose entries I have been reading, spent an extra day in Pearisburg, so I am now ahead of them yet still have not actually met them.

I was in a kind of funk for most of the day today — a touch of what hikers refer to as the “Virginia Blues,” I think. What with Julie leaving this morning and the uncertainty as to whether I would catch up (or be caught by) any of the hikers whose company I have enjoyed so much so far, Maine was starting to seem like a very distant place. The long hike I was facing didn’t help, either. It was almost as though nature were trying to cheer me up, though. I had the experience of unintentionally “chasing” a young bird down teh trail (it couldn’t fly high enough or far enough to do anything but fly down the trail in front of me) while its mother fussed from the sidelines. I also saw three different deer that weren’t bothered enough by my presence to run off — I got within about 30 ft. of all of them as I walked downt he trail. I also flushed six or seven quail, so, nature-wise, it was a pretty good day.

I am still in a bit of a funk, however. My focus is now to get to Harper’s Ferry as fast as is reasonably (I proved today that big mileage does not mean missing out on the nature experience), both so I can see Julie again and so I can possibly hook up with Buck. Gandalf is getting off in Harper’s Ferry, so I’d like to think there is somebody else I like that I might be bumping into occasionally, if not every night.

It’s been a long day, and I want to read a little E.B. White before retiring.

Article idea: Trail names — significance and anecdotes about

• The nominal mid-point of the A.T., and home of the Appalachian Trail Conference headquarters, is Harpers Ferry, WV; Gommie and Dee, my mother’s mother and stepfather, lived just a few miles from Harpers Ferry, and Kim and I visited every summer of our childhood; I took a few day hikes on the A.T. with my parents as a kid, and the Blue Ridge Mountains were firmly established in my youth as idyllic scenery
• I started hiking the A.T. with the hopes that the trip would help me figure out what I wanted to do with my life; I was thinking “with my career,” which I didn’t figure out (that took another decade)
• I did figure out that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Julie
• Julie and I were engaged on Mt. Katahdin — the mountain whose peak is the northern terminus of the A.T.
• Benton is named after Benton Mackaye, the man who conceived of the A.T. in the first place
• Carson’s middle name — Baxter — comes from Baxter State Park, where Mt. Katahdin is located in Maine
• My parents’ cabin on Lake Rangeley is something they found as a result of my hike — when they started looking for a place in Maine, they asked for my input (I pointed out that my view of Maine was an awfully narrow corridor, but did comment that “Rangeley seemed nice”)
• It was in an A.T. hostel in Rangeley — no longer there — where I learned that Dee, my mother’s stepfather, had passed away; I last saw Dee — very much on the decline — when I took a few days off in Harpers Ferry, WV, which is the nominal mid-point of the A.T. and the home of the Appalachian Trail Conference headquarters
• I’ve kept, “Hiked 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine upon college graduation” as the last line on my resume for years — sufficiently low on the page that it’s not a claim of qualification, but I’ve always believed that it does two things: 1) shows that I can set a goal and accomplish it, and 2) gives the interviewer an easy topic for informal chit-chat early or late in an interview
• I’ve used “Gilligan” — my trail name — as a moniker in any number of situations, including my professional blog — Gilligan on Data

And, I can point you to friends who have seen me spout A.T. anecdotes on demand! There were a lot of people and experiences crammed into a 5-month period.

So, I’m going to look back on that experience over the coming 5 months. From an integrity-of-the-documentation standpoint, I’m planning to publish every entry exactly as it was written. I know there are a few things that are a little embarrassing in some of my thoughts — all embarrassing to me; if I find something that might be embarrassing to someone else (I don’t think there is anything, but you never know), I may selectively edit those parts out.

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