PEOPLE, EQUIPMENT, GROUND, SELF-IMMOLATION
PEOPLE: I know it’s still part of the update, but every day you meet or hear about so many extraordinary examples of the people here.
Case #1: The Tolberts take the trail: husband and wife walk with SEVEN. Again, SEVEN kids covered 2,196 miles on a full hike last year. The only reason I met them was because the father and my daughter were hiking with another girl 360 miles this year to help her complete the trail because she injured her knee last year. VERY amazing.
OTIS: 73 years old and has been hitting the trail off and on since April, a total beast. He had become my hiking companion for the last 5 grateful days. I had been alone for 2 days and I absolutely HATED it. You would think it would be a great opportunity to think, contemplate, ruminate, reflect or be introspective. No, I don’t have any of those. My only thoughts are; miles per hour, my feet hurt, what time will I get to my destination, or worse… is that log a bear? Is that root a snake? Bottom line for me… hiking buddy.
DON: Enter the shelter during a heavy storm, with 6 of us already crammed under the eaves. This cat was wearing sandals (think Target’s shoe section) and a backpack that was a cross between Fred Stanford’s garden and Jed Clampetts’ truck. Six of us squeeze tighter for him as he just sits in the mud and begins to unpack. Don was not a customer of a sporting goods store. He proceeded to take out of his backpack «a pint of vodka, a can of A&W root beer, a jar of mustard and a bottle of olive oil and other flotsam. Later he sat down and wrote poetry and asked me if the people monitoring him were friendly. GAH… I assured him they were. For the next 3 days he was a ghost on the road; in front of us, behind us… he shows up 14 miles later and reads us poetry… damn alien. Last time I saw him and he I was asking McDonalds if they accepted food stamps and if I could use my shower at the hotel NO.
Shelter Owner: Last year he took a lady on a 229 mile hike across North Carolina with a 1 year old… backpack on her back, baby in front. I struggle with the terrain, crazy to imagine what she accomplished.
WALKER: Insistent on buying me a communist Coca-Cola after finishing a 10-mile day
Lady: free haircut in town…she really didn’t want to charge me anything for my bald head…I offered and she said «go buy dinner at McDonald’s…too sweet.»
STUPIDITY: I took a blue (water) trail for 1/2 mile DOWN, until I was convinced…oops…wrong way. All the way back. I was so sure it was wrong and right on the way down.
Stupid continuation: TENT: I set it up one night… upside down… F-Me… fixed, upside down… F-me, the poles are wrong… F-me… the poles are color coded… F-Me
SMART: Big discussion during the rain about hanging food bags for the beats…the consensus was that the beats won’t go out in this weather. My thoughts were… no, they only survive on sunny days. Either way, I hang my food, let the bear eat the idiots and I’m fine. Good?
LAST THOUGHT
HAPPINESS IS ONLY REAL WHEN IT IS SHARED
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