morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-05-04
From: Miss janets again!

To: Roan Mt
Miles today: 13.0

OK-Short entry.After having a blast here the past few days, I must be on my way. it was a wonderful experience helping out with breakfast in the mornings and I really enjoyed my stay here. It was great meeting everyone and going around the table each morning and answering Miss Janets questions like how we got our names, what song we would listen on up to Big K, and the worst trouble we got into before the age of ten...Onward now to roan Mt. the highest shelter on the AT.Take it easy everyone!~I'll see my trail friends in Damascus.
Date: 2005-05-23
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Well, Troy "Rocket" has been on the Trail for a week now and is really getting into the grove of things. He called this morning and gave an update on how it has been going since leaving Damascus. He said that the terrain has gotten very easy so he has been able to do 13 miles days without any struggle. He sounded very happy about that. He is currently at the Partnership Shelter outside of Marian, Virginia. This is supposed to be the nicest shelter on the trail and he said it lived up to its expectations. When he called at 9:40(a.m.) he was eating Pizza that had been ordered in (one of the reasons this is a favorite shelter of hikers, you can order pizza). He has really enjoyed the past week he said. He has been hiking with Sunflower ever since they left Damascus so it looks like he officially found his hiking buddy for the rest of the trail. It sounds like these two are going to make it to Katahdin together. He was also very excited because in one of the movies that he would watch called "Trek" there was a scene where they talked about this big yellow school bus that is on the trail. It is an old bus that has just been sitting for some time. Well, he actually passed it on the trail this week. It was very awesome to see something like that when you had seen in on TV so many times. He will be calling again once he gets into town so as soon as I get more info, I will update everyone on more of what has been going on!!
Date: 2005-07-16
From: Front Royal, VA

To: Washington DC
Miles today: 60.0

Hey! No time to really update the journal, but I uploaded a lot of new pictures, so go to the photos section of my site, (click the link to your left), and check out the pictures dated July 16...Sunflower and I are currently in Washington DC taking a break after hitting Harpers Ferry which is the Mid-way point mentally...The actually half way point is in another 100 miles...We are having a blast in DC, and I would like give a special thank you to Dave Greenberg and Alison MacDonald who our letting us stay at their apartment and have been more curteous than anyone could imagine, Thanks Guys-!!!Take it easy everyone and check out the new pics!Can't wait for our next adventure!
Date: 2005-07-29
From: Waynesboro, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

HEY EVERYONE!I don't have time to really write, but I made it through the Four-State challenge succesfully after a few obstacles like getting lost and adding five extra miles to make a total of nearly fifty miles total. I left the VA line at midnight and crossed the Mason-Dixon into PA around 10:00. Sunflower did the last twenty-six miles with me so she deserves major applause also.We haven't taken a single day off since the challenge, and we did 130 miles this week. WE have turned into mileage monsters and we're blazing a fire path through this entire state which isn't hard since it is like 95 degrees, but hey, its motivation to move becuase no matter what it is hot and sticky, and we're motivated to get into New England. Take it Easy Everyone!PS- EVERYONE- WE ARE STAYING AT THIS CRAZY HOTEL IN DUNCANNON CALLED THE DOYLE HOTEL. IT IS INSANE. YOU ALL HAVE TO CHECK IT OUT- GO TO WWW.DOYLEHOTEL.COM *Bottle-Rocket
Date: 2006-01-24
From: Springer

To: Finished
Miles today: 0.0

Okay, we finished. I know it has been over two months since our last entry, but as soon as we finished all 2174.9 miles of the Appalachian Tail, we hurried off to our new lives in Conway, New Hampshire and got acclimated to our new work routine, which consisted of clocking hours not miles, FUN¢¦ We finished our Thru-Hike on November 15, on an obscure road near Killington Vermont after weeks of rain and snow, but we managed to have fun in the process. Our hikes didn¢t go as planned, and we couldn¢t be happier. We both had the time of our lives. We never imagined that our hike would be a massive flip flop style hike that included hopping all around to cover different sections of trail. We did it our way and became some of the few successful hikers that actually complete a Thru-Hike of the Appalachian Trail. We couldn¢t be prouder.Now, after time has passed and I have had the opportunity to collect my thoughts, I am starting to realize what an amazing feat we have just accomplished and I am dreaming of the next adventure, but I wander how it could be as amazing as our Thru-Hike. Words can¢t describe these experiences, the people and places. Kara, (Sunflower), and I are both working at the ski resort in North Conway, and we¢re doing super. We are in the planning phase of our cross-country bike trip set for spring of 2007, and after that we aspire to hike the PCT. This hike cannot be summed up in one last closing letter, and so this is how I close my trail journal;My life started anew at Springer Mountain in Georgia, and although I have hiked all 2174.9 miles of the Appalachian Trail now, My journey continues, I move forward, it will never end, onward I go.
Date: 2004-12-20
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Our Own True NotebookWhere the night overtook us, there we beddedin storm or frost, or summer heat on stones,knowing the light would find us in the morning,daylight would lift us on our aching bonesto totter onward for a little while, then dark,then day again, until, a lifetime spent,amidst leaves, litter, waterfalls and rills,we would assume that what it was we meantwould have been listed in some book set down beyond the sky's far reaches, if at all there was a purpose here. But now I think the purpose lives in us and that we fallinto an error if we do not keep our own true notebook of the way we came, how the sleet stung, or how a wandering bird cried at the window. It is not the samefor all, or what they would dissemble or narrate.Infinite millions have passed this wayexpecting sun at morning. Now at lastI muse content on this one single daythinking that through these hours light was flowinginto the eyes of cheetahs, condors, men,and how they made of it their separate worlds,diverse and agonized, then slept again. ¢ Loren Eiseley
Date: 2005-01-12
To: happy birthday dad
Miles today: 0.0

Having just blamed my desire to hike the AT on my dad (indirectly anyway ¢ well, the desire indirectly; the blame was pretty direct ) ¢ let me offer you a snapshot of the man in question:It is my father¢s birthday. I am working at the coffee shop, weighing, measuring, and grinding umpteen batches of coffee beans, when in walk Dad and his friend Bob. My father has lunch with Bob fairly regularly, which prompts my mother to sigh, You talk to Bob more than you talk to me, which prompts my father to look bewildered and say, But you already know everything about me.¢Hey hey hey,¢ says Bob, walking up to the counter. ¢So do you have coffee here?¢ (Everybody¢s a comedian.)¢Who wants to know?¢¢He does,¢ says Bob, gesturing with a thumb towards my father.¢No coffee,¢ I say. ¢Reprobate character.¢My father grins. ¢Ha ha ha,¢ he says. He is wearing what might charitably be described as the Ugliest Hat in the World, a ratty dark brown suede cowboy hat acquired at a scout ranch in New Mexico and resolutely worn. The brim keeps rain off his glasses, he insists, and the suede makes for a marvelous wind-blocker. Nevertheless, in the fall, when he is wearing a fleece jacket, the cowboy hat, and earmuffs, with the airbag for the leafblower slung over his shoulder, waving the air tube while clearing fallen leaves from the end of the driveway, he looks like nothing so much as a strange, 70s-era TV hybrid of cowboy and space invader. Now, he stands on the floor of the coffee shop in a beat-up orange jacket, rain sluicing off the battered suede brim of his hat, unshaven and grinning, glasses fogged, surrounded by a slow-moving constellation of soccer moms, and Bob.¢Happy birthday,¢ I say.¢Thanks,¢ he says.¢That hat,¢ I say. ¢Man. Is there anything I can do, in the world, at all, to get you to not wear that hat?¢¢Buy me another one,¢ he suggests.¢Would you stop wearing that one?¢¢Maybe. If I liked the new one enough.¢¢Don¢t like those odds,¢ I say.¢You give up easy,¢ he says. ¢I need to show you what Bob gave me for my birthday.¢¢Okay,¢ I say.He pulls out a small tchotchke and sets it on the counter between us. It has four wire legs and looks like someone got creative with the leftover bits of their Erector set, and then attached a weight and a windup key. The plastic box he took it out of informs me sagely that it is a ¢Spinney: Collector¢s Item.¢ He winds up the key. ¢Watch out,¢ he says. He puts it down. The Spinney rattles and shakes, jiggling on its four wire feet, then falls over into a small pile of coffee grounds, twitching spasmodically. After another ten seconds or so, it is still.Long pause. My eyebrows are raised. I look at my father. ¢That¢s it!¢ he says, gleefully. ¢That¢s all!¢¢Uh-huh, ¢ I say.¢Sometimes,¢ he adds, ¢it breakdances, too.¢
Date: 2005-02-15
To: quandary for the vertically challenged: update
Miles today: 0.0

I have it on excellent authority that Mr. Shine is six feet three inches tall, which would, yes, make him over a foot taller than I am. Interesting. But he¢s also got a wonderfully calm and relaxed attitude towards it all, so I am not worried. We¢ll take it as it comes, and I am pretty sure we¢ll have fun, whatever transpires.We will, nonetheless, make for quite the starting photo. I am reminded of my first college roommate, a wonderful ¢ and towering ¢ girl who informed me thoughtfully that my head made an excellent rest for a beer can. We had quite the time hanging our mirror on the wall so that both of us could see ourselves. I think in the end I was on tiptoes, and she still had to bend her knees a little.But Mike, they (that ubiquitous ¢they¢) tell me I ¢don¢t seem short.¢ Whatever that means. I¢m inclined to think it means that what I lack in inches I make up for in panache. Wishful thinking, maybe. You¢ll have to decide.
Date: 2005-02-17
To: fasten your seatbelts. itÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs gonna be a bumpy night
Miles today: 0.0

I want to be Bette Davis when I grow up¢¦¢¦not that it worked out all so well for Anne Baxter¢¦I watched ¢All About Eve¢ today for the first time, and my God, what a brilliant movie. Bette Davis is hypnotizing. Why don¢t movie scripts that good get written anymore? And who knew the Academy actually had a modicum of artistic integrity in 1950? What gives? I mean, once you look past the whole McCarthyist Hollywood blacklist thing? (Or not.) Still, fifteen nominations? That¢s doing. (I washed my hands of the Oscars in 2000 when ¢Gladiator¢ won Best Picture. Tripe. I think it¢s telling that if you search IMDB for ¢Gladiator,¢ it pulls up not only the award-winning movie in question, but also a 2001 film entitled ¢Gladiator Eroticvs: The Lesbian Warriors.¢ Which I cannot claim to have seen, but which is still probably a better movie than the former. You do the math.)Back to the topic at hand. If I had Bette Davis¢ delivery ¢ well, my life wouldn¢t be quite complete, but I¢d be pretty pleased with myself.¢[The body] hasn't been laid out, we haven't finished with the embalming. As a matter of fact, you're looking at it - the remains of Margo Channing, sitting up. It is my last wish to be buried sitting up.¢¢I¢ll admit I may have seen better days¢¦ but I¢m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut.¢¢Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it twenty years from now. I hate men.¢And I now have the perfect response to comments about the likelihood of my encountering (even one) Charles Manson while on the Trail. Take note, Bayley. (The rest of you, see her February 16th entry in my guestbook.): ¢Heaven help me, I love a psychotic.¢
Date: 2005-02-18
To: under my skin
Miles today: 0.0

I had my first Trail dream a night or two ago, or at least the first one I remember having. The details have slipped away, but I know I was out there, walking, and then I woke up, still home, a month away from leaving. They say that the parts of dreams you forget are inevitably the most significant. Seems a difficult theory to substantiate, but it still makes me wonder what I¢ve forgotten since waking. Where was I? Had I reached Neel¢s Gap? Fontana? Damascus? Hot Springs? Harper¢s Ferry? Katahdin? Were my knees intact? Was my spirit?I think it was also a day or two ago that I looked at a calendar and it hit me, for real: This trip is not just a dream anymore. It¢s happening ¢ and soon.So I find myself, these days, slipping in and out of several mental states. There¢s giddy excitement, where I can smell spring coming on the air, and I think of mountains. There¢s nervousness, where I can feel my eyes grow wide and wonder what I really think I am doing anyway. There¢s denial, sheer noncomprehension, where I keep on going methodically about my daily business because the idea of backpacking for six months is too far outside my present frame of reference for me to do anything else. And then there¢s a sort of zenlike calm: patience and acceptance.A hunch is a hunch is a hunch, to bastardize Gertrude Stein; but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and if I were sure of exactly what I was trying to say, it might be this: I can suspect the Trail is where I ought to be at this juncture in my life, but that doesn¢t preclude waves of anxiety, or fear, or wonderment.It doesn¢t preclude me from dancing around the room in excitement, either. Twenty-three days! Is this real!?
Date: 2005-03-05
To: Trail map progress tracker
Miles today: 0.0

Thanks are due to Wyatt, whose ingenuity has (if unintentionally) satiated my mother's burning desire to watch me be a moving dot on a map:I'll be the light purple dot, slowly moving north...And again, click on the paintbrush below to find out more about RAW Gone Wild, my Appalachian Trail fundraiser for RAW Art Works. It'll be the most exciting paintbrush you've ever clicked. And that's a promise.
Date: 2005-03-07
To: This too shall pass
Miles today: 0.0

Six more days! I'm going nuts out here. Frantic phone calls with loan officers, trying to get the money thing all figured out, dealing with health insurance agents, seam sealing, wondering what on earth I actually think I am doing, and how much permanent damage I'll have done to my body by the time I finish...I can't wait.The loan officer conversations have been mind boggling entirely by themselves. They went something like this (I did not actually use the word 'buttload', but the gist was the same.):Me: So, I got this statement from you yesterday saying my account is past due, but actually, I sent you a buttload of money in December so that I could go hiking and not worry about making loan payments.Them: That is correct. Our records say you owe us two months' worth of payments.Me: No, but see, I SENT you a BUTTLOAD of money in DeCEMber, so that I could go HIKING and not have to worry about LOAN PAYMENTS.Them: Ah, yes. We see. Yes, you did. Indeed you did. It looks like our fax machine is broken. You are correct. You do not owe us two months' worth of loan payments.Me: I didn't think so.Them: And if you call back in two weeks, our computer system will probably verify that fact independently. Probably. But maybe not, in which case we will send you a statement telling you you owe us three loan payments. Which you don't, but you should call back in two weeks, to make sure you still don't.Me: But I will be gone in two weeks.Them: Wow, I really hope it all works out before then.Me: ...I don't know why I bother with art. Real life trumps it every time.
Date: 2005-03-08
To: Ye shall know the truth, andÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ¦
Miles today: 0.0

Despite my grandstanding about handing my mother the link to this journal on the way out the door, I decided last week (at the behest of my conscience) that I really ought to show it to her ahead of time, and offer to take down the stuff about her, on the off chance that she really would consider it grounds for disownment. Luckily, she thought it was funny.***I thought it was funny. But do you walk around with a tape recorder? Nah, I don¢t have a tape recorder, I just wrote it down later that night.But how did you remember that whole conversation?Face it, Ma, you¢re memorable.Shut up.People ask me if I¢m exaggerating for artistic purposes, and I tell them, Please. I could not make up the conversations I have with her if I tried.***How cold will it be when you start?Fifty, maybe?Fifty degrees is a little nippy to be sleeping outside!Maybe if you¢re not wearing anything.And do you have anything to put on your head while you sleep?No. No I don¢t.What?! Of course you do!Yes, of course I do! It¢s called a HAT.Don¢t be ridiculous.Who¢s being ridiculous?You are.You look at me with this stricken look on your face, like you¢re about to bring something up you¢re sure I haven¢t thought of, and then you bust out with, Do you have something to cover your head while you sleep.WHICH hat?The blue one.The one I gave you?That one¢s green.Which one is the blue one?The¢¦blue¢¦one?I don¢t know that one.It¢s fleece.You need something for your nose. A nose snood.A nose snood.Yeah.If you want to get me a nose snood, be my guest.***Is the tape recorder in your pocket?I don¢t have a tape recorder.***What are you doing?I was looking at that cover article in the paper on child prodigies.Do you think you¢re a child prodigy?I think I transcend labeling.Mmm.What do you think?I think you should go write a journal entry. Oh really.About how wonderful your mother is.Ah.And I think you should wash the dog.You think about many things.I think other mothers and daughters have the same kind of relationship. Don¢t you?Yeah. In spirit, anyway. Possibly not in lexicon.I¢m relieved you think so.***
Date: 2005-03-10
To: The mixed blessings of Pocketmail
Miles today: 0.0

Hi folks, this is your friendly transcriber doing a test run for Jess' pocketmail thing. It better work, because if it doesn't, Jess will be in the middle of the forest somewhere and there won't be a whole lot that I can do. But without further adieu, I present you with the lovely and talented Break-a-leg:You might think that I, being the paragon of preparation I am,would have tested my Pocketmail before now. You would be wrong. But I am sitting here testing it now, and becoming newly acquainted with the pleasures of the thumb cramp in the process. Seriously, this thing is brutal. Does it get easier with practice? I hope so. Besides, this is actually my second time writing this entry- the first time, the batteries died halfway through and the whole thing disappeared. Maybe everyone who claims to despise technology on the trail is actually just sublimating their rage inappropriately after a bad Pocketmail experience. I realize this is unlikely, but it would be funny, no?The other primary reason for writing this is to officially introduce Sara as the world's hippest transcriber. And by "hippest" I mean "short, obstinate and with a real job. Enjoys long walks on the beach and quality cheese." Who doesn't, really? Transcriber note: I actually hate the beach. In fact, I try not to go outdoors. Jess is the one who is into walking. But the cheese thing is right on. If you are reading this she has succesfully navigated the TrailJournals page and posted this entry. A round of applause.Tammy, because she too is cool like that,has volunteered to post any pictures I send home. I don't have any photos waiting just now, so she gets to wait to practice posting photos. But my confidence is unlimited.So an enormous thanks to both halves of my crack reporting team. These two were the editors of our high school newspaper back in the day, so you see I surround myself with nothing but the best. I've given Sara full license to insert editorial commentary where desired. I may live to regret it, but what a way to go.
Date: 2005-03-12
To: Pre-trail musings
Miles today: 0.0

And I'm off! Flew uneventfully to Atlanta yesterday and have been treated to some wonderful hospitality by my aunt Lynne (motto: "The only difference between insanity and charming eccentricity is money. You may as well learn that now"), who has been feeding me as though I will never eat again, helping me run all sorts of errands, and being generally fantastic. Thanks, Lynne!The weather here is unbelievably gorgeous - in the seventies and sunny. I called Jaime. "It's in the seventies and sunny," I said. "I hate you," she said. "I'm walking through the sleet right now." I was seized with a last minute fit of panic. "Jaime," I said, "what if this was a mistake? what if I get hurt? what if I hate it? what if nobody likes me?" "If you get hurt," she said, "you'll take care of it; if you hate it, you'll leave (but you won't hate it), and you'll have friends. Don't be ridiculous." Solid advice, and it was appreciated.And so tomorrow is the trail - but before leaving I wanted to make sure to thank Lynne, and Jaime, and also Tammy and Sara for transcribing, and Molly and Deborah and Josh and my brother and my grandparents and all the other friends and family who've offered me their love and support. Thanks as well to Chris Percious at Advanced Mountain Products for the stove (which works beautifully), and to everyone at RAW for letting me get involved.And the most thanks of all to my parents, without whose love, support, basement storage, and 5 AM drives to the airport this trip would be impossible.Next entry from the trail!