Date: 2002-09-05
From: Maine

To: GA
Miles today: 15.0

Thursday September 5, 20025:15 amI am up and getting my blister stuff put on and the wind is howling. It¢s really protected here but I can only imagine how windy it is on top of the mountain I have to climb this morning. I head it is supposed to be 30 to 60 mph winds. I am all ready and strapped up and ready to go, like an old workhorse. 6:15 and am looking around to make sure I don¢t leave anything behind. There was a beautiful sunrise this morning. I don¢t think I ever mentioned where they have a lot places on the trail where they have boardwalks and they will have 3 x 8¢s, 2 of them together laying on logs and it will be a board walkway and it will go on quite a ways. The do it to protect the fragile vegetation underneath. I have taken some pictures of it. I am really missing Mary. I am out here and have all this time by myself and I think of all the things she does for me and other things she does for other people. So this has been good because I really learn to appreciate all those things she does for others and me. Also My grandkids and my kids. I think of all the things I should be doing with them and maybe should start doing with them. There is purpose for everything; maybe this is why I am here. To contemplate all these things and change the way I do things. Also I have so much time to think I am thinking of remodeling. Tearing the old fireplace out of the living room and taking the brick hearth out and thinking of taking the dining room into the kitchen. Taking the wall out and making a great room. Thinking also of going to Texas and taking that lot Harry bought and setting and plotting it out for a campsite for relatives to visit. Would be a nice place there for everybody to gather. Stopped into Ethan¢s Pond Shelter. About a 1/10th a mile off the trail but I need to get some hot coffee and take break. It¢s cold today and the wind is raw. I cooked up some oatmeal and had coffee and I am glad I stopped. Here comes this old guy up the trail, stumbling around, looks like he is about my age and wants to know where to get water, and I said well that sign there says you got to get it out of the lake. So back he goes. Said his name was Pete. I asked if he was headed to Katahdin and he said YUP, he was not very talkative. Looked like he was about done for. But I saw Pete again as I was getting back on the trail and he is from Syracuse, New York. Said he had 3 weeks off with a blister on the ball of his foot that got infected. He skipped a little section I guess but he is going to go to Katahdin and then will come back and hike the section that he missed. He had been hiking with 2 other ladies, but one sprained both ankles and the other one fled, but the one that sprained both ankles is back on the trail again. There is something about this trail that brings or calls you back. You hate it at times and other times you love it. Sort of like Ragbrai, a lot pain but then accomplishment too. Unless you have experienced it then you just don¢t understand it. Met Gray Goat, who is just hiking around. He is pretty good old boy. Came across a group of about 10 girls all sitting around in a circle in a clearing here in the trail and looked like they were having class. Oh and forgot last night to tell you that the wind was blowing so hard and when you set up camp, and pitch your tent you want to look around for any dead trees because they might be falling over on your tent or you. I had not done that and I thought, OH MAN that is just what I need. So from now on, I have to look around a little better before setting up camp. The trail has been flat for the last 2 and half-hours and it doesn¢t look like it on the map. Very nice and wide. Will probably be climbing soon it looks like. The leaves are changing here in NH. I am sure in Maine they are really changing. Was thinking about all those leaves at home that Mary is going to have to rake up because I am not gonna be there to help her. I hope she gets Dan to help her. Either that or just wait till a nice strong west wind and go out and stir them up so they blow right over there to Franny. Because She loves to rake leaves. In fact I saw Franny out there one day with a rake in her hand and there was not a leaf on the ground and she was standing there with her rake looking up at the trees. Everytime a leaf would come she would rake it. And then another one would come and she would rake it. She can not stand to have a leaf on that ground. I saw her one-day last fall without a rake in her hand last fall and I didn¢t know who it was. Didn¢t recognize her. Ha, Ha. I was walking along here and thinking about work, and you know I hardly ever think about that. I thought maybe I would miss it a little bit but I don¢t. I don¢t miss work at all. Isn¢t that something? And though a lot of people do when they do retire. I worked there for 20 years and I have no desire to go back to work there. It was good work but it got to the point in the last few years that I really didn¢t feel like I was contributing anything or making a difference. I know when I worked construction and we built things and I felt a sense of accomplishment at the end. But I guess I never really got that sense of accomplishment in the work that I was doing, except with the fermentor and it was challenge and I worked on that and perfected that. That was good but the other part I just didn¢t feel like I was not really that important but really I think I crave more physical labor really. I think maybe the construction business is in my blood, maybe I wasn¢t supposed to be in a laboratory. I tell you what, I would rather be here than there, but I miss the people. They are good people. There is a lady there that works in purchasing and I am not gonna mention her name, but her name is Donna, ha. And she don¢t think that lab can run without her. She thinks they will have to shut down the place when she retires. It just scares her to death to think there will be people out of work and sitting at home because Donna¢s not there to the purchasing for them. HA. HA. HA. I am walking through an area where there is a giant rock slide and you look up and there is rocks up there like they are just ready to start tumbling again and the whole side of the mountain slid down. Great big mass jumble of rocks, like car-sized rocks. Goes on forever. Amazing to see. Found some more wild blueberries and boy are they good. I don¢t know why but I haven¢t thought much about AA meetings lately and I was thinking today that I probably could have found some in those small towns I have passed through. Especially Gorham, but its great day to be sober and I am just glad that I had the opportunity to live because if I hadn¢t stopped drinking I would be dead. And I wouldn¢t be experiencing all the things I have experienced in the last 25 years and it¢s been a great run. Thinking about Mike Nehring today and all he has missed out on. I was mad it him for along time. But he was very ill emotionally. He couldn¢t help himself. It was the way he grew up and after he grew up. Him and I had so much in common. He was so good to me, he treated me just like a brother, and we were like brothers. But I think about him on days like today when I am feeling pretty good and all the good times that I have had with my grandkids and my family and then all the good times he could have had. The good times him and I could have had. With him being retired and me too we could have done. Just think of the things we could have done, we probably would have worked together in carpenter work and we probably would have taken trips together. But those are things in the past and you can¢t go back and change but it¢s interesting to think of the things that could have been were it not for this disease of alcoholism. Mike was the best person; I loved him more than anything. He told me before he died, he told me, he said Dick, I love you. They say you get a little daffy out here on the trail after a period of time and I guess maybe I do get daffy and I get a little lonely here and start talking to myself. So Pam, what I am doing, I will take out this tape recorder just like I am talking to myself so you just put down whatever you think is subject to the AT trail. I am just talking to be talking and it¢s almost like I am talking to you. My little nonsensical thoughts. Small talk. Stopped into Zielan Falls Hut, had a cup of hot cocoa and 6 cinnamon cake and 3 more cups of hot cocoa. So I am headed out again and it¢s about 3:30.Don¢t know where I will end up tonight, depends on the trail.Just met !turtlehead and !beefsteak and they said I had better go look at the view. And that is what I am gonna do and WOW, boy I am telling you, fantastic and those guys are all smiles they are having a great time. I have to take a picture of this now, have 3 pictures left. This view sort of reminds me of Alaska and also I have been thinking lately and get up to Alaska next summer and Theresa and I will surely do some hiking. Oh I can¢t wait. I anticipate what a great time that will be for us. Met Rover and Sunshine. Sunshine is the lady and rover is the man. They are just as happy as can be. The further south I get the more the north bounders are friendlier. Isn¢t that something? Man the wind is really blowing up here. I am top of Mt. Guyot. And what a view. You look around 360 and see for miles and miles and fairly clear day. I do see some haze but that must come from Boston and New York City and the cities, there is never really a clear day like in the Rockies. The Rockies you can see for miles and the same way in Alaska, but here there is always a haze. Met 2 more north bounders, !scooby and !hotrod. Started in Springer, GA. From North Carolina, and !catchup just caught up to them. She is from Colorado. I asked how she ended up with these 2 and she has been with Scooby for about 6 years she said. Have been meeting a lot of north bounders today. Just met !amazinggrace, lady, very quiet thin subdued gal. The wind on Mt. Guyot about blew me off the trail. There is a ridge that runs along there and one direction goes to campsite and the other one goes to Galehead hut. The campsite is Plubely¢s and I was planning on staying there tonight it¢s about 9/10 of mile but it¢s only 3 miles to the hut and it is 2:15 so I am going on to the hut. Jeff and Erin and Katie are at the hut and they are part of the crew and if I don¢t then will rewind. I am going to work for stay here tonight. So what do you think of that Mamma? Just met Handstand and he is going to work for stay too