Date: 2002-07-29
To: Georgia
Miles today: 0.0

ON flight northwest airlines and took off at 6:40AM for the AT. Stayed in Cedar Rapids at Shelly¢s last night, Brenna was there also and it was hard to leave her. She is just my soul mate I guess I love all my grandchildren but tit was extra hard to leave her, I guess because I guess she loves me so much. Mary was upset I believe because I was leaving. And it was, I almost changed my mind. I think sometimes I am really selfish but this is something I really feel I need to do. And you only live once. Now I am in the air.   About 40,000 feet in the air. Flying over the old hometown of Alden.   Which I won¢t see for about 5 or 6 mon6ths. This is a little bit scary.   I have some fears that I need to overcome especially the first day of climbing MT. Katahdin.   But I will talk about that later, Just now I just got back day before yesterday from RAGBRAI, the big bike ride. Was a great ride but I had so many things to think about. Hopefully I have everything packed and ready to go. My backpack the Kelty 50th Anniversary didn¢t come so I am using the old Camptrails Pack, and it seems to fit me good so we will see how it goes.   I feel pretty strong. A little bit tired from RAGBRAI, but I think I am strong enough to make this physically, mentally we will see. I have a person meeting me in Bangor, Maine. Her name is Louise Fisk. She has been kind enough to take me to the Katahdin Stream Campground, where I will camp tonight. Where I have a reservation. I made contact with her through a classmate of my wife Mary¢s at a reunion. And met Nordel Schinderks, they happen to be sitting beside us and happened to mention Maine and told them about my difficulty getting to campground by bus. Because the bus doesn¢t leave the airport till 6 and doesn¢t get to my other drop till 7:45 and then have to take a cab to the Katahdin Stream Campground gate and it closes at 8:30 so I was telling them I was afraid I was kind of worried about making it in time.   They set me up with this lady that lives in Millinokin, and they called her up and she said she would be happy to come down and take me up there.   I was thrilled and what a relief it was.   She must be a very nice person to do this for someone she doesn¢t know. I talked to a lady at the Minneapolis Airport that was from North of Bangor. She was going home.   Told her I was going to start the AT Hike and she said, ¢ I hope you have plenty of fly spray.¢ And I said, ¢Well, I have plenty of that.¢ And she said¢ You must be a brave man to venture out with all those flies. ¢   I have heard Abu those black flies, but I heard they were not as prevalent this time of year, but we will soon find out. Well here I am at the Katahdin Stream Campground. July 29. Wasn¢t sure I was going to make my connecting flight in Boston. Had to run to get to the gate, plane was half-hour late. Everyone on our flight to main was worried our luggage wasn¢t going to get there. Everyone was getting worked up and so was I then someone spotted some of their luggage getting off the cart. We were happy about that. So I got my luggage, and I recognized the lady right away, she had an Iowa Hawkeye sock on and she had another lady with her. And they drove me clear up here to the campground, windy and hilly road. Some rough roads and that was great. I am all set up now. Very beautiful. Someone said that maybe they didn¢t want to have anyone climb tomorrow but I am gonna do it. I have my bear bag pulled up and out of the way. Now I am going to talk to some south bounders. It¢s kind of tough getting organized up here but I had something to eat and will probably go to bed early. The ladies that brought me up here were very nice. They were just more than happy to do it. Met a guy tonight, another south bounder, he said there are 6 south bounders taking off about the same time we are. He¢s from Miami, Florida. He is heading to Georgia also.   His trail name is Spanky and he is a character, talks all the time.   Said his wife said she didn¢t know if she wanted him to go on this or not, but he said he has raised 8 kids and he is gonna go.   He said that he should get my home phone number and have his wife call my wife and get some support. But anyway I am glad to see somebody. And he is going to climb with me tomorrow. He says he wants to be in Georgia by Xmas and I said that I think I want to be there by thanksgiving but we will see how it goes. .