Date: 2009-05-28
From: Dickey Gap

To: Dickey Gap
Miles today: 0.0

Today was an absolutely wild day. We woke up in the hostel after a snore-free night. Jungli and Willow were very impressed as Scavenger was telling them some horror stories about how loud I snore. We then packed up our belongings, thinking that we would be doing a slackpack in the afternoon from the Partnership Shelter, back to Dickey Gap (Troutdale), as I needed to wait for my maildrop to arrive. When I popped into Jerry¢s Kitchen in the morning to sift through the packages, I noticed that I had received a letter from Bev, one of Candy¢s friends, who is getting her PhD in medical physics from University of Chicago. Smart cookie, she is. The card was beautifully made and colourful all over. It included various important quotes and even some ¢recent news¢ from the real world in case I missed the headlines. It was very much appreciated, Bev! We caught a hitch from Troutdale to Marion by two highschoolers (Ian and Aaron) from Cleveland, OH who were out to do their senior project in helping to refurbish parts of the AT. One will be going to Carleton College in MN and the other will be going to Yale. Very friendly guys for picking us up. In Marion, I spent the first two hours of the day just getting caught up on emails and various messages from friends and family. Scavenger had some business proceedings to deal with, so he headed off to a coffee shop. Soon after, he came back with the news that we were to be given a free lunch aka ¢trail magic¢ by Mike, the owner of the restaurant and bistro Handsome Molly¢s. Apparently, he and his wife were asking Scavenger a ton of questions about the AT, perking their interest to take on the challenge. I was able to meet Mike when we headed to the restaurant, and he served both of us a fresh salad and a gourmet pizza, despite his restaurant being rather full during the lunch hour. We were so grateful for his generosity and help. On the way out, we were also stopped by three people eating lunch who had all sorts of questions about the AT. To some degree, we felt like mini-celebrities walking around town with our backpacks and our trekking poles, getting sometimes odd and sometimes favorable looks by each passerby. Maybe our ¢legend¢ will continue to grow if we make it another 500 miles. ¢And I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more¢¦just to be the man..¢After lunch, I headed back to the library to continue working on the Trail Journals site. I also had to take some time to mail things home that I no longer needed: my fleece, my rainpants, a larger sized 4 oz. knife, and my iPod charger (I now have an Energizer iPod charger we seems to work quite well). When I arrived back to the library, Scavenger had already met a homeless guy who had told him about a free food dinner at one of the downtown churches in Marion at 6:00 pm. We decided to give it a shot, so we packed up our things at 6 and headed down the street to see what we could uncover. At the church, we talked to the staff organizing the event, who allows us in the backroom to get any type of canned food that we would want: corn, beans, peaches, apricot, various types of soup, and many, many more. We opted for some soup and bread to eat immediately and some other canned foods that we would take back to the hostel to share with the others. Again, we were treated like celebrities and the entire staff wanted to take a picture with us. We reciprocated the fame and managed to get a picture with them, the real heroes for helping us get a nice meal out on the AT. They also offered us a 12 in. by 6 in. blueberry pastry, which we graciously accepted. After giving thanks to the staff, we took the food outside and down the street and into one of the business enclaves and shared the food together. It was absolutely delightful. The main reason why we didn¢t stay was merely because we had to catch a long hitch back to Troutdale, where all of our stuff was. The big news for the day was that Scavenger was getting off the trail tomorrow to head back home to Nashville, TN for about six days in order to see his sister before she leaves for Uganda for the summer and to see his girlfriend, who will be moving to the west coast for school in the fall. It will be his last chance to go home before continuing along the AT over the next 4 12 months. I was and am definitely bummed about this, but we must all take care of ourselves and understand the importance of family. He has been a great hiking partner over the past 2 12 weeks and I¢m going to miss him. We both agreed that we make a great team and get on very well. He plans on making up some big miles and, since I have to get off for Dan and Kim¢s wedding in 3-4 weeks time for four days, our paths very well connect sometime down the road. Walking out of Marion, we immediately got a hitch from an older guy named Teddy. He was pure Appalachia and I could barely understand him. But, he truly was a nice guy and was very accommodating. He was telling us that he always helps out the thru-hikers and that he works 3 hours per day, 6 days per week at a total of 18 hours per week at the post office as an auxiliary delivery man. When we asked him about family, he mentioned that he grew up in and lived in Marion, but that he moved to Sugar Grove (only 8 miles away) to get away from his ex-wife and make sure that there was a mountain between them. He dropped us off in Sugar Grove, where we needed to get another hitch. The small convenient store and gas station had 24 different ice cream flavours, and I ended up choosing Butter Pecan, which was delicious! We waited for a good 45 minutes, as it was late into the evening and the number of cars that were passing by was limited. I even went into the convenient store to make up a ¢Troutdale¢ sign, but we eventually caught a hitch only 10 minutes later back to Troutdale from a Cisco employee who is hoping to do a thru-hike the following year. Even though Jerry¢s Kitchen had been closed for over an hour, I knocked on the door and was allowed in to look through the mail drops and easily noticed my aunt¢s handwriting. Thanks Kathy, Becky, and Zoe! Tomorrow, I still have to update my blog in Marion, so I am going to head into the library and then slackpack back to Troutdale and then get on the road again after that. I enjoy updating this blog, as it will be documented and easy to access in years to come, but it has also been a bit difficult to sit here and type everything up. Maybe I should consider not writing as much; however, I do understand that it is the vivid detail and explanation of events that transmits glimpses of the generosity and camaraderie and wonderful spirit of trail life back out into the real world.