Date: 2015-08-12
From: Crawford Notch at US 302

To: Crawford Notch at US 302
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Here's a picture of my paper table mat at the diner I ate at tonight. Look at that profile of the old man at nearby Franconia Notch. It's practically perfect. Unfortunately, it collapsed a dozen years ago, but now you and I know what it used to look like, as well as some really swell local deals.I meant to mention a funny thing that happened when I was in a Comfort Inn a couple of nights ago. Since the guest laundry room was just a few doors down from my hotel room, I did every bit of my laundry. That means I was walking up and down the internal hallway with a towel wrapped around me. When I was bringing back all of my dry laundry in a big clump with both hands and trying to work the magnetic card, the towel dropped to the floor just as I was opening the door. I sheepishly looked around, and fortunately I was alone in the hallway. It made me chuckle as I went into my room.My wife suggested that I write my thoughts about maintaining this journal or blog or whatever you want to call it. When I first started I had a couple of reasons to do it. The main one was so that my family and friends could keep up with me and know that I was still out here alive and kicking. I also had had several people say they wanted to hike with me and rather than try to coordinate all of that I would just tell them to watch my blog and how many miles I was doing per day and they could come join me anytime they wanted.But a funny thing happened as I started keeping this blog. It became an outlet for me to describe the day's events, what I was learning about gear and techniques, and some of my own personal feelings. I've preferred and enjoyed finding solitude out here, so I think the blogging has been kind of an outlet for me and a surprising one at that. I'm a fairly private person and I've never put myself out there in such a public way before. As I started hearing from my family and friends and even strangers in the guestbook, I found people were enjoying my random musings. Also, trail angels started writing me and we would correspond, and some of them have really helped me on the trail. Many other readers have posted such encouraging and helpful comments. All of this has kept me pretty juiced to keep writing every night. Mind you, it takes a lot of willpower (mostly staying awake power) to do it every night. Some nights, I just feel like saying "screw it," but I kind of feel like a lot of people are looking forward to hearing about how my day went.Another thing, the blogging forces me to think about what I'm seeing and experiencing so that I will have something to write about that night, and that may be making me more aware of everything during the day. Finally, a couple of people have suggested that it will be a great keepsake for me and maybe even my grandson someday. Imagine that, that little pudgy one year old possibly one day reading what I wrote here.So my motivations for blogging have expanded since I started, and overall I'm really glad that I've kept this thing up throughout. And if you are reading this now, then you are part of my motivation. Thanks for coming along with me on this adventure.