9/14/93 – Tue.

Exactly one year ago today I reached that magical age of 21 where I legally became old enough to purchase and consume alcohol. To celebrate that event, today was the first time ever that I was denied that right to purchase alcohol — no New Hampshir I.D., no sale! Happy anniversary!

I did remember to set my alarm for midnight last night so that I could wake up and celebrate John Teichert’s  and my “magic” moment — the split second where we share a birthday.

We were in town by 8:30 this morning, and it seems like just about everyone is here — Missing Person, Chow Hound, Special K, The Last Ones Out, The Mushroom Man (N.J. Ridgerunner), Cloud & Scout (!!!), Old Man Sundance & Terrapin Flyer, Pooh Bear, Maniac & his girlfriend, Seeker U.K., Jane, Airplane, Mosquito Lunch, Buck, and myself. It’s quite a reunion!

Sadly, Buck is probably going to jump ahead to Monson, ME, and spend a slow 20 days doing the 100-mile wilderness.

(Buck got off phone — end of entry)

This stop, I believe, was the first place that I ran into flip-floppers with whom I had hiked much earlier in the trip. A flip-flopper was someone who started the trail at either end, hiked towards the other end, then, at some point, got off the trail and headed to the other end and started hiking in the opposite direction, thus completing their thru-hike somewhere along the trail rather than at its northern or southern terminus. This was more common with people who were heading north from Georgia and realized that, by the time they reached New Hampshire and Maine, it would be too late in the year to hike. Cloud and Scout were the sisters I met back in the Shenandoahs and hiked with off and on for a week or two.

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.

7/14/93 – Wed.

23.5 miles today to Tom Floyd Wayside Shelter. It’s 9:00 PM, and I’m about as close to being positive that I will be alone this evening. Cloud & Scout almost definitely stopped for the evening at the shelter where I ate lunch today. They never showed up last night, so they would have had to do something over 23 1/2 miles to get here, which just isn’t likely.

I’ve had Julie on the brain all day today. She’s not supposed to be at Ashby Gap until 6:00 PM tomorrow evening, and I have a feeling I will be there before that. I suspect she might, too.

I saw a little bear cub this morning. When it saw me, it took off down the hill so fast that it tripped and flipped head over heels a couple of times before it could right itself. It looked like Winnie the Pooh doing a Tigger imitation!

I saw multiple deer today, including a couple of moderately sized bucks. This afternoon, I came across a doe that was standing in the middle of the trail facing me. i decided to just keep walking at her until she bolted, but finally had to stop when I was about five fee away because she was making no move to flee. I stood there and talked to her for a while, explaining that I had no food to give her and would she kindly step aside to let me pass. After bout 30 seconds of this nonsense, something finally spooked her and she took off.

I got caught in a brief but hard rainstorm today, so my boots are drenched and will probably remain that way all through tomorrow, which is not a pleasant thought.

At the very end of the day today I left Shenandoah National Park. Unlike when I left the Smokies, today I had a real sense that was “returning” to the A.T. The Shenandoah’s have been so commercialized and “car-camper” oriented that the park is just like a big zoo. Even the wild animals there are not as wild as they should be. Also, with all the stores and restaurants near the trail (not to mention Skyline Drive), it was hard to think of myself really being out in the woods. Sure, it was nice to be able to have an ice cream bar every day, but, then again, how much better would ice cream at Gommie’s have tasted if I hadn’t eaten any since Waynesboro? Much, I think.

I made my fruit stew again tonight, but improved on it somewhat. I had a little over a cup of blackberries & blueberries, I had some dried “fruit bits” (store-bought), I had home-dried strawberries, and I used two fruit punch Jolly Rancher hard candies for sweeteners instead of Kool-Aid. I had a larger quantity than I had last time, and I think it tasted better. Watch out Julia Child — Gilligan is in the kitchen.

And that is my day in a nutshell. Tomorrow I see Julie, and there is nothing else I can think of that could get me out of my sleeping bag faster tomorrow morning.

7/11/93 – Sun.

21.4 miles to Hightop Hut. So far it’s just me, Cloud, & Scout. I finally met Roadrunner today — he was at the shelter when I got here, but he pressed on and is going to camp somewhere. I thought Crazy Hawk would be here, too, but he has yet to arrive, so who knows?

I saw a black bear cut today, as well as a 10 point buck. The bear was actually on the trail about 20 yards ahead of me, and the deer was only about 20 feet off the trail. I also saw a doe, but next to the other sightings, that was pretty much a non-event.

I stopped at a store that was a couple of hundred feet off the trail and splurged and bought two ice cream bars & a bottle of Gatorade. I tried calling Julie, as I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, but she wasn’t home.

I have fairly vivid memories of the Shenandoahs — partly that they were very easy walking (flat and well-maintained/wide trails), and partly that the trail was never more than a hundred yards from a road, a campground, or even a general store like the one I stopped at.

If I have my facts right, this stretch of trail was a major bone of contention between Benton MacKaye — the original conceiver of the trail — and Myron Avery — the man whose determination really made it a reality. As Skyline Drive was being planned (by the government — I can’t remember exactly which departments were involved at the time), MacKaye vehemently opposed having its route be so close to the A.T. Or where the A.T. was planned to run. Avery, however, was much more pragmatic and realized that digging in their heels on that issue would not be likely to change the final outcome and it would likely foster some ill will with government officials whose support they needed. Obviously, Avery’s position won out. The two men were barely on speaking terms for decades. Even now, I can look back and remember how much I wished MacKaye’s vision had been realized. But, I can also look back and realize that his vision was sufficiently quixotic that Avery as a counterbalance was necessary.

7/7/93 – Wed.

20.2 miles today and am staying at Maupin Field Shelter with “The Three Musketeers,” a father and his two sons from Franconia, NH (aged 11 & 14), who hiked from Franconia to Harper’s Ferry last year (last two years?), are going from Harper’s Ferry to Hot Springs, NC, this year, and are planning on doing the two ends next year. Pretty cool, huh? The father owns a small marina in Boston, so that’s how he has the time, I guess.

A small pre-Cloverdale/Troutville note: just before we got there, we crossed Tinker Creek, which someone (Waterwitch, I think) had noted in a shelter register was the title creek in Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which I only managed to read about half of because I liked it so little. But, it was still kind of neat to cross the creek, even if not at the same place that Dillard had so many melodramatically described deep, meaningful experiences.

A note from yesterday: I saw/ate some wild strawberries, which were good but too sparse and close to the ground to eat very many.

I caught up with Streaker, Hooper, T.H. the Lost Boy (T.H. is for “Too Heavy”), and Taku (T.H.’s dog) today at the river, and I should see them again in the Shenandoahs.

Cloud & Scout: Two sisters from New Jersey, aged 24 & 26 (not respectively). They are a riot. They were several days ahead of me, but hav ebeen slackpacking out of Rusty’s while waiting for there maildrop to arrive in Waynesboro. They, too, I should see in the Shenandoahs. We were up talking until 11:30 PM last night, and I still woke up at 6:00 and was on the trail by 7:00, so I still haven’t gotten that good night’s rest. I’m not all that tired, thought, as I took it pretty easy today — lots of breaks and lots of water. Streaker has had a bad experience with dehydration on the trail which I read about in registers but got the more complete story from him today. I am always careful about water, especially with the heat & humidity we have had of late, but his tale made me just that much more cautious.

I met “Flipper” today, too — my second homeless person. He hiked from Massachusetts to D.G. on the A.T. because he had some sort of business there, and enjoyed it so much that he just kept going south. His method of food resupply? Foraging in the wilderness, which is much harder these days than it used to be.

Tomorrow, I hit Waynesboro. I heard from the man from N.H. today that the Comfort Inn is nice and conveniently located, so that is where I’m planning to stay.

7/6/93 – Tue.

24. 2 miles today to Seeley/Woodworth Shelter.

I am alone tonight. This is only the second time on the trail so far that this has happened, and it is the first time it has happened in a shelter. I am experiencing a very subtle kind of freedom in which I do not have to be considerate of anybody else while I go about my business. I have talked to other people who have spent multiple, consecutive nights alone in shelters, and they say that, although it is nice occasionally, it gets old fast. I wonder if I will find out for myself.

I did not sleep well at all last night. I was hot, the bugs were out, and the frogs an “peepers” in the nearby pond made a racket all night. I think tonight will be different, though. I am tired.

Today was my third consecutive 20+ miler, and tomorrow I will be going for a fourth. The terrain has been pretty tough, too, so I have really had to push myself. There are obvious negatives to this. There is a minor amount of constant stress and pressure to crank out the miles, and it’s a lot harder to stop and smell the roses, if you’ll pardon the cliché. My body is feeling the wear of the long days, too. Joints and muscles rebel daily in the middle of the afternoon. For all of these reasons, I do not intend to make this the norm, but there are positive reasons for doing it, too.

First of all, I need to get to Waynesboro in time for the cobbler to get my boots fixed before the weekend. That is the real necessity, but I might be doing this anyway for other reasons.

This is the first real chance I’ve had to test my own limits — mine alone. I am in between hiking partners now, so the only person who affects how far I travel is me, and I need to know what “me” can do. Each day, every day, I set a tough goal, and when I reach it my sense of accomplishment is high.

Also, by pushing myself now I will feel better about taking a couple of days off in Harper’s Ferry — I won’t feel the same urgency to get back on the trail because it will be a deserved and needed rest. I may wind up taking a full day off in Waynesboro, too, depending on how my errands go & how much time the cobbler needs.

I thought about Dee some this morning and actually got misty-eyed. I have so many clear memories of time spent with him at the farm, and it seems so sad that soon memories will be all I have. I even have fond memories of him in the nursing home.

Well, Cloud & Scout just arrived (arrived just after dark, that is), so I am not alone. Two women, mid-twenties, from New Jersey, and very outgoing, so it looks like this entry is going to be chopped short in the interest of conversation.

Cloud and Scout cropped up off and on for a while after this. They were sisters, I thought. Kate Spann…and darned if I can remember the other (or which one was Kate). We’ll see if that comes up in later entries.