Date: 2003-05-22
From: Partnership Shelter

To: TroutsdaleVa.
Miles today: 14.6

We enjoy a great breakfast at the Inn this morning. We do not talk much because we both know that the time is growing shorter and shorter before we have to say goodbye.Papermaker drives me up to Parnership Shelter where I will slack pack back to Dickey's Gap and stay at the FoxInn one more night.We kid around with the stuffed bear in the Forestry office. I finally head down the trail after a quick embrace and kiss. I do not turn around to wave, afraid he will see me crying. Part of me longs to go home with him, to the comfortable life I have. A home, warm bed, clean clothes and a predictable rut that we call life. It is that rut that causes me to continue hiking. I want very much to get out of that rut. Where days run into days and I go to sleep at night feeling like I am missing something. Call it empty nest, call it midlife crisis, what ever it is I just feel that there is something more that I am missing out on. What is my life to be now?? No more Mom to little children that need tending. Do they still need tending after they are grown and gone??I come to a sign that tells me I have hiked four miles. I look at my watch and am shocked to see I did it in 90 minutes! At this rate I will be back at the inn in no time at all. I hit the wall just a few minutes later.I run into Pushing Up Daisies, who is slacking north with a friend.The rest of the day is overcast and threatens rain, but never does. I am beginning to enjoy hiking in a misty forest. The smells are completely different.When I come out at the road, there are no other hikers around. I have promised never to hitchhike alone, so I wait, and wait and wait.I walk down to the main road and sit on the guard rail, trying to look like I needed a ride, however that could look. I clean the mud off of my shoes as best I can just in case a car stops. None does. I wait, and watch the time, making sure I leave myself enough time to walk into town before dark. I finally run out of time and start walking. I do not have my pack on, so other than the hiking poles I carry, I could be just someone out for a walk. I hear a vehicle slow as it passes me, then pulls off to the side of the road. As I walk up to it, I notice that there are two other hikers in the back seat. I recognize them from the trail. They had regonized me and asked the driver to stop and pick me up.I get off at the Trading Post and eat supper with a couple of other hikers. Much to my delight Footslogger and his wife are there and stating at the Fox Inn tonight. We all get a ride to the inn where once again I clean up and take a long soak in the tub. I go down stairs and grab a throw and listen to Kenny G in the music room and catch up on my email. Why do I not do this at home? I have a beautiful music room at home and I do not even take time to enjoy it, much less read a book. I probably could read a book a week and it would take several years to read them all. Is this a lesson I need to learn from the trail?How to enjoy life, to take the time to do those things that we want to do, but for some reason, be it guilt or time retraints, we just seem to scurry around doing a endless task of things that are not really important. Or are they really important? In the end, what are the things that are important? Maybe in life I can learn to do what is suggested about the trail. In the end was the hike all you wanted it to be?Way too deep for me right now. Time for bed.