Date: 2004-05-08
To: View Entry
Miles today: 3.6

The following is a guest entry written by the Mahi Mahi (with Kung Fu's permission):I awoke at my sister's house in southern Virginia early this morning and hit the road. I headed north towards Kung Fu somewhere near Snicker's Gap. After an uneventful 3 hour ride with only a few wrong turns I spied Kung Fu off to my right. I rolled down my window, snapped a picture, and shouted, "Hey! Look at the freak!" He gave a slight laugh, then hopped in the passenger seat with a terse warning, "I might be kind of smelly." Now I have worked at an outdoor boy's camp for seven summers of my life. I have volunteered in a homeless shelter. I have two little boys just coming out of diapers. I myself have gone nearly a full calendar week without bathing or changing my clothes... I have been smelly and I have smelt smelly people... but nothing could prepare me for the assault which my nose suffered this morning (Kung Fu says, "And I just spashed off in the creek yesterday!" Right. And if you believe that then I have some prime property in Florida to sell to you). Under any other circumstances I would have run for cover, but Kung Fu and I are good friends. So... with the windows down we set out for our nation's capital. Capitol. Whatever. I imagined that Kung Fu might like a break from endless days of walking from tree to boulder to tree... so in my infintie wisdom I took him to Washington, D.C. where we spent the day walking from tourist to traffic cop to tourist. Not many people in D.C. wear kilts. I know this sounds like a strange observation to make at this time, but it's true. I insert this thought at this point because I now know WHY there are no kilt wearers in D.C.. Kung Fu wears a kilt on the trail for comfort reasons and he just happened to be wearing it when we got out of the car. A strong gust of wind and all of a sudden anyone looking our way probably saw a few monuments that they didn't intend to see that day. Not many people in D.C. wear kilts, and neither did Kung Fu for much longer. Opting for his hiking pants, Kung Fu and I set off for a day of adventure. There wasn't too much excitement in D.C. this day and quite frankly it was a little bit disappointing. There are a lot of new fences up around the lawn areas (evidently to keep the terrorists' dogs from diddling on our capitol's grass) and lots of cops who blow their whistles at you when you don't conform to the pedestrian herd. Moo. The most amusing moment came when we visited the White House. We saw a crowd of people in front of the security fence and thought that George might be out pulling weeds or working the crowd. Kung Fu had one photo left on his disposable camera and thought a picture of himself with the commander-in-chief would look really fine in his trail journal, so we headed on over. Unfortunately, George wasn't there, so I asked Kung Fu if he wanted me to snap his picture in front of the White House, anyways. He said, "No, I'm saving my shot for the President." I told him that that probably wasn't the wisest thing to say, and we hurried on. We passed by a little kid climbing on the security fence, and not long after that we spied a big beefy security guard headed our way through the bushes. Kung Fu thought that he had a big can of pop in his hand. I informed him that this can of pop probably dispensed about 200 squirts of beverage per minute at high velocity and then I prepared to die. Fortunately, he passed on by, so I can only assume that the kid climbing the fence must have met a grissly end. So it goes. At any rate, we had a good time walking around D.C., and later that night we camped at a state park that was staffed by a park ranger with a very large side arm (no doubt to protect our state parks from whomever they need protection from). We paid $9 to camp overnite and had to pack all of our stuff in to the campsite. What's up with that? We ate an obscence amount of sour gummy worms and Swiss log rolls and didn't have near enough Citrus Drop to slake our thirst. We burned much wood. All was good. We awoke the next morning at about 6AM and had a quick breakfast of pancakes and nasty tasting Kroger brand sausages. We broke camp, and since most of the stuff we packed in was either edible or flammable (or both) we didn't have much to pack out. We hiked back to the car and I dropped Kung Fu off at Snicker's Gap where I first smelled him the other day. I mean found him the other day. And so ends my guest entry. Kung Fu, I'm sorry about the beverage and the sausages... I won't let you down again. Keep walking... and don't forget there are a lot of people out there praying that God will guide your every step.