Date: 2007-04-01
From: campsite at MP 390

To: Dennis Cove Road 409.3
Miles today: 19.3

It sure looked like rain when I got up. It did sprinkle a few drops but here I am eating lunch without any real sign of an April shower to properly Christain the arrival of April.I have been making good time,so far today because of easy terrain (no change in elevation), but still I eventually ran out of steam and thought I might as well eat something. I'm eating a hard salami snack my wife bought me and a Kashi trail bar. I shouldn't have mentioned the rain it is starting to sprinkle. I put on my rain gear back where I wrote that last sentence, only to have the rain start and stop several times. I about killed myself trying to hike in my rainpants. They eventually had to go back in my pack. I was hoping to make good time all day but it didn't work out for me. As soon as I ran into the daily "PUDS" (pointless ups and downs) my legs grew weary and my pace fell off terribly. I was going through the daily torture of trying to make the next shelter appear (by lying to myself as to when I would see it) with the same poor success I have been having during this whole thru hike. I suppose I need to explain a little. As I was going through the mental process of trying to determine if I was really seeing the roof of the next shelter a section hiker snuck up behind me and scared the heck out of me."I didn't mean to scare you" he said" That's OK" I said, "Everyone scares me like that. I have bad hearing and don't hear people coming"" I tried to loudly shuffle my feet" he said."I know" I replied taking him at his word.It turned out that he had started two miles back from where I had started in the morning morning. He had made up the two miles in seven hours time."The shelter ought to be around here somewhere" I said, not disclosing that I had been expecting to come upon it for the last half hour. "It should be another mile or two" he replied with the certainty of someone who keeps a good pace and can accurately judge distance.I know I started out the day at a good clip, but I have a hard time judging just how slow I am going when I slow down. I know it must be too slow. It makes hiking more predictible when you can maintain a pace. When you can't maintain a pace you expect to see things in front of you that are still a long way off. On with todays journal entry...The section hiker told me he was heading for one of the trail's more famous hostels. When he asked me if I was going there too I told him I had seen in the "Thru Hikers Companion" the other hostel had free internet. I walked the .3 miles to the other hostle. There was no one there. There was a computer but it was not plugged in and looked like it wouldn't work even if it was. I packed up my stuff and headed to Kincora, the other hostel. I had to hike back the .3 miles I had already come and then another .2 to reach Kincora. The hostel was everything everyone said it would be. I didn't miss the internet. There are some wonderful peope in the world Bob and Pat Peoples are two of them. It is an excellent place to take a zero day and it was hard leaving those who were choosing to do that. I had to take the last of my ibuprophen since the fast hiking on the paved road in the dark had taken a toll on my joints. Maybe it was that the 19.3 miles on the trail plus the . 8 miles on the paved road added up to 20.1 miles and this was more than I should have hiked.