Date: 2004-05-16
To: Tumbling Run Shelter
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Sunday . . . Today is a day I will not forget in the near future. I was a 1/4 mile from quitting today. It is sad, but true. I broke down as I was walking over rocks and my knees were screaming in my head ¢Just Go Home!¢ Tendons saying ¢Go Home!¢ I had totally talked myself into going to Pen Mar Park at the border of PA & MD, and hitching to the nearest bus station.Then, I met up with DiDi. She is a 27-year-old woman from New Jersey. We had a couple of sodas and talked about the trail. My thoughts about going home . . . about staying on the trail . . . about what draws one to stay on the trail . . . what is drawing me home, and so on. The final answer today has been to hike ten more miles to this shelter at Tumbling Run.I started second guessing myself the moment my family drove away. Moving on -- I hiked 17+ miles today. DiDi and I hiked the rest of the afternoon together. Telling each other about life in New Jersey and Michigan. We laugh -- talked movies, books, college degrees, and travels. We quickly got to the shelter -- or, at least, it seemed quick. She was a godsend to me today.We got to this shelter and Mary Magdeline (real name Caroline) was sitting in the shelter.Side Bar: Actually she was sitting in one of the two shelters here. The non-snoring shelter. The other shelter is the snoring shelter. Mother -- finally a shelter for you! ha ha!Anyway Mary Mag. just graduated from college with a math degree. She is now looking into her graduate work. She is a quiet, soft-spoken girl, who is one of the smartest and wisest women I have met in a long while.So now the three of us ladies have been sitting in this shelter talking about life in general. Patterns, tendonitis, and so forth. Didi just graduated with her Masters Degree in Geology and under grad in Earth Science. She has done some extensive traveling for her degrees. It is intimidating to some degree to sit here with two woman who are very intelligent. Very insightful.We talked about the sadness of war. How we are so lucky to be here on the AT, and not in combat somewhere else in the war. This lead to a confirmation of me definitely staying on the trail. We further discussed the feeling that we needed to stay in contact with the war our country is waging in Iraq. But Mary Mag. made a conclusion to this: ¢I don¢t have that need at all. It is not in the details that I need to know. I know war is occurring all over the world. It is not the specific land or the specific person or people. It is that there is always that present evil and it saddens me.¢I was so moved by this statement. How could I get mixed up like that . . . it is a common mistake though. Getting lost in the media and forgetting (almost) the complete shock of what is really happening.The conversation was interrupted by four weekenders. The weekenders consisted of 2 males and 2 pretty princesses. They were very friendly. In fact the more Jaegermeister (sp ?) that they drank, the more they offered. It was nice. There was a fire, which Didi had to save for them. They gave us hot dogs and even . . .I couldn¢t believe this . . . SMORES! It was like ¢real¢ camping -- the kind I grew up with, at least.Today turned out to be one of the best days on the trail this far.STORY: As I am sitting here writing this, the two guys announced quite loudly that ¢We¢re going to get us some more firewood.¢ This said as they mustered their most manly testosterone camping voice possible. They were all quite drunk -- so I knew this would be pretty amusing. Crack! Splash! ¢Shit!¢ Back from somewhere near the stream Mr. Weekend Warrior appears near his campsite still spitting out stream water and cursing. ¢I fell in the *@ !# ! River.! Ha-ha-ha. He was wet from almost head to toe. Gotta love newbies . . . Thought -- Who looks for firewood in the stream? Ha-ha.