morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2005-04-23
From: Holiday Inn Express, Erwin, TN

To: Holiday Inn Express, Erwin, TN
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

I¢d originally been planning to head out of town this afternoon, but with snow still rolling in and showing no signs of slowing anytime soon, it seemed a good idea to stay the day. I went into town with Linux and Pacman to go grocery shopping, where Linux and I wandered around the produce department cracking terrible fruit puns (that last pun was really grape! It takes, okay, a particular mind to appreciate this humor) and to get lunch, which we did at a small Mexican dive. There was a painting of the Last Supper on the wall ¢ not da Vinci¢s version; this one was painted by some anonymous individual - and Pacman insisted one of the apostles looked exactly like Cyclehiker, which made the three of us stare at the painting for no few minutes. I think the waitress thought we were a little peculiar. We hitched a ride back to the hotel with some nutjob in a pickup who asked us if we¢d mind if he took the highway route to get there. We¢re talking all of a three mile hitch through sleepy downtown Erwin here, but somehow this guy needed to get on the highway, so the three of us huddled in the back of the truck going seventy miles an hour in the snow with the wind whipping the grocery bags everywhere and stripping the zipper on my jacket. Back at the hotel we found Freedom and Thatch and Serenity and they were all ¢whoa, what happened to you?¢ while I stretched my face out manually and waited for circulation to return. But it was a ride to the hotel, and for that I¢m glad. Bummed around watching TV all afternoon, eventually succumbing to the lure of a root beer float from the A&W next door and Hush Puppies from the Long John Silver¢s, and the five of us watched a documentary about FDR. I fell asleep before it was over. In the morning I asked how it ended and Linux said ¢He died.¢ Serves me right.
Date: 2005-04-24
From: Holiday Inn Express, Erwin, TN

To: Curley Maple Gap Shelter, (NC/TN?)
Miles today: 4.2
Weather: overcast clouds

It was still snowing in the morning, but with signs of slowing, finally. After indulging in another continental breakfast, courtesy of the Holiday Inn Express, and packing everything up, Linux, Nick, Dave and I headed out. Pacman had left earlier; all the GLGE-ers were planning on waiting till a little later in the afternoon to leave. The four miles out to the shelter were almost flat, and though it was snowing lightly as we walked, the cold wasn¢t too bad. When we arrived, the shelter was filled with people waiting out the weather ¢ apparently it¢s supposed to get nasty cold tonight ¢ and so we all packed in like sardines, the five of us and Burn and Spruce and Moose and Piker and Mileage and Squid Jerky. Cuppa, Serenity, Free, and Andy all passed by planning to camp a little farther up the trail. I¢d packed out broccoli and plum tomatoes and snap peas and was frenzied to get rid of the pack weight so I passed it all around. Burn passed out beer. I stuck a stalk of broccoli on a stick and attempted to roast it over the fire. The sight of broccoli on a stick made me laugh. The roasting didn¢t work very well, but the broccoli was good anyway.Nick and Dave shared some of their dinner ¢ Death Valley chili, cooked and dehydrated by Nick¢s mom, and unbelievably good ¢ and we all huddled together for warmth and had a rousing story hour filled with tales of thwarted preadolescent love. (¢Can I call you back? I have a CD on pause in my room.¢ Ouch.)There were so many of us sharing the shelter I could barely roll over all night. Nick said it was the best night¢s sleep he¢d had on the trail ¢ never before, and likely never again, would he sleep bolstered by so many other bodies.
Date: 2005-04-25
From: Curley Maple Gap Shelter, (NC/TN?)

To: Campsites by stream, (NC/TN?)
Miles today: 16.4

After a wettish morning the weather cleared up and the sun was a welcome, if temporary, return. Everyone else headed out early and I took my time wandering along (though Burn and I yo-yoed relative trail position a few times; he walks faster than me but stops every mile or so for a cigarette break). Beauty Spot lived up to its name. The trail was pretty gentle for the first nine miles or so; I knew the day¢s one big climb would be up and over Unaka Mountain. Passed several northbounders slackpacking south into Erwin ¢ Scholar, Stilts, Sunshine, Domino, Touk, Gypsy ¢ Gypsy said she felt like a ghost, intersecting with all these discrete clumps of northbounders, none terribly far from the others, yet each as if in its own world. The top of a Unaka was a pine forest still quite snowy and still quite dripping on my head, and I was glad when I descended out from under the cover of the trees and back in the sunshine. I¢d stopped at a spring on the way down the mountain for a rest when who should overtake me but Captain Chaos, who I hadn¢t seen since Franklin. I told him I heard he was demoted to Private Chaos for skipping the Smokies and he said he didn¢t know what I was talking about. As if. (¢Captain Chaos: More lightning of the feet, less thunder of the mouth! Love, the Walrus Brothers.¢)Arrived before too much longer at Cherry Gap Shelter. Chatted for a little while with Piker and Mileage and Bassline; then headed down to the stream to get water and accidentally let out a huge belch as I walked by the shelter. ¢Whoa,¢ said Captain Chaos, ¢you burp?¢ ¢Yeah,¢ I said. ¢Scuse me.¢ ¢That was pretty good,¢ he said. ¢You ain¢t heard nothin¢ yet,¢ I said. ¢Really?¢ ¢Yeah. Really.¢ ¢You fart, too?¢ ¢Yup.¢ ¢Whoa.¢ The boys left a note saying they were pushing on to the campsites four miles farther north and I should come find them; I, unable to resist the lure of a Charles Bukowski story hour, kept walking and arrived shortly before dark. I met some locals on the way, out bushwhacking and digging ramps; they thought I was insane for thru-hiking and I didn¢t feel in a position to contradict. Had a minor scare setting up camp when I thought I¢d lost my tent stakes (and since my tent is not freestanding, having no stakes reduces my shelter to a big floppy bag, period), but they¢d just fallen out of their stuff sack to the bottom of my pack.
Date: 2005-04-28
From: Buck's, Roan Mountain, TN

To: Moreland Gap Shelter, (NC/TN?)
Miles today: 17.7

Rolled out of Buck¢s before a too embarrassingly late hour. Pacman, as usual, took off early ¢ he hates hanging around towns longer than necessary ¢ and Nick, Dave, Linux and I headed back out to the trail a little later. Toodled along with airy chitchat about reconceiving American theater (you know, the standard morning small talk; be still my heart), passed a cemetery for a hit of deadblazing, and kept on going, looking for the turnoff to Jones Falls, which we kept thinking we must have accidentally passed. But finally ¢ farther than it seemed like it ought to be ¢ the turnoff appeared, and we went down to the falls for a lunch break. I took the opportunity to reconstitute some dried hummus, and paired it with some of what seems to be my neverending supply of Erwin broccoli.And this I¢ll say: I wanted the broccoli, and the broccoli is good, but there are certain perils to the buy-one-get-one-free marketing scheme. If you are a hiker. Who carries everything on her back. My best efforts have still failed to completely vanquish the broccoli, and the boys are starting to make fun of me. For carrying broccoli. Large stalks of it. Strapped to the outside of my pack. For the fifth day in a row. I feel a little bit like the hero in that kids¢ book whose title I can¢t remember, the one who wore a stalk of broccoli around his neck for two weeks. [I think the book you're thinking of is something like How to Be Popular in Thirty Days or some similar, but I can find no evidence to back up this hunch. -Tammy] But suffice it to say the bar above which I am no longer willing to look like an ass is set pretty high.In any case. After the falls, we headed back up the trail, and Linux and I walked together most of the afternoon. One of my poles broke, suddenly, during the walk, and for no apparent reason; I think I bent it during one of my falls-in-the-mud on the way to Overmountain day before yesterday. It began raining again late in the afternoon, and I suppose we¢re paying the price for our pre-Erwin week of beautiful weather: today marks the eighth straight day of at least some precipitation. Everyone¢s damp. Kincora¢s only six miles away, and I think nearly everyone is looking forward to drying out there. In the meantime, we¢re consoling ourselves through a variety of methods: Poet, Serenity and Free are sharing a big jar of Nutella; Linux is listening to ¢Under Pressure¢ on Andy¢s MP3 player and singing along, loudly; I found my missing spork (it had absconded to the dinner bag and was hiding behind the quinoa all this time, the little bugger) and have been waving it around and smiling. Whatever keeps a girl happy. My feet are a little sore still from the crazy day going over Roan; I said as much, and Linux said, ¢You should try walking at the Break a Leg pace. Good for what ails you. Oh, wait.¢ ¢Funny,¢ I said. ¢Very funny.¢
Date: 2005-04-29
From: Moreland Gap Shelter, (NC/TN?)

To: Kincora Hiker's Hostel, Hampton, TN
Miles today: 6.1

A short six miles to Kincora, and just before reaching Dennis Cove Road, Linux, Nick, Dave, Pacman and I found a few beers nestled against a tree. This, I thought, has the earmark of Burn¢s kind of trail magic. It seemed improper somehow to pass by a beer tree without paying due respects, but it was still early morning, and I wasn¢t quite ready for a beer, so I stuck a can in the side pocket of my pack and walked on. Didn¢t realize until we were already there that Kincora is a dry hostel, and I felt like a delinquent, one of the darker elements of society. I mean, I wasn¢t going to drink it there, if Bob didn¢t want people drinking in his hostel (and Bob Peoples is a trip and a half; funny as hell and so kind, and his hostel is a spectacular place to spend a day.). But I couldn¢t throw it out, so I tucked it down deeper in my pack, felt kind of like an involuntary smuggler, and shrugged. What else to do? But what a conundrum. And all because of a beer tree. Bob Peoples packed some nineteen people into his truck ¢ I¢m still not sure how he managed it ¢ and took us down to the grocery store, which was one of the largest and most well-stocked supermarkets we¢d seen since starting the trail, and so we all walked around in a daze loading up on foods. I couldn¢t resist a liter of rice milk, and Free walked around the store drinking from a huge jug of Sunny Delight, and Linux coveted dinner rolls, and the three of us and Poet and Serenity all went in on ingredients for a huge pasta and salad dinner.Back at Kincora, and after a much appreciated shower and load of laundry (it is, for the record, still raining: day nine) we ate and ate ¢ all the aforementioned foods, and mounds of fruit, and someone, I forget who, made brownies and cookies, and Serenity handed me a bowl of ice cream and bananas which I intended to take a couple of bites of and ended up finishing. Oh, heaven. So there was much camaraderie and I paged through a copy of Yogi¢s PCT handbook and thought what a worthwhile adventure that sounded, too. Linux and Pacman joked about how, thirty miles into the AT, they¢d had a totally knobbish conversation about how they¢d tackle the PCT next, easy ¢ as if this first long trail were already in the bag. I¢m inclined to agree that my feelings about a potential PCT hike are kind of worthless right now, when I¢ve still got eighteen hundred miles of this trail to go. But right now it sounds like all that and a bag of chips, so check back in with me in a few months. In between eating, and the odd phone call, Nick and Dave and Pacman and I played a convoluted version of Twenty Questions that I¢ve always referred to as ¢the celebrity game¢ and Linux calls ¢Boccione.¢ Followed that up with verbal ping-pong (strangely addictive), hangman, and anagrams. Unbelievable how long I can spend doing these things. Dave¢s favorite anagram: OPOP. I don¢t know if it¢s age regression or an overdose of male company or what, but I am finding poop jokes really funny these days.
Date: 2005-04-30
From: Kincora Hiker's Hostel, Hampton, TN

To: Watauga Lake Shelter, (NC/TN?)
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: moderate rain

A backrub from Serenity and I am in heaven. I advise all people to befriend licensed massage therapists. I mean really. Late start. Weather clearing maybe? Who knows. A walk down past Laurel Falls, which are lovely, and then the climb up Pond Flats. The name, excuse me, is a crock. The trail is beautifully maintained, but steep as all hell. It¢s been weeks since I felt a hint of asthma on a climb, and this one wiped me out. But even if I can¢t breathe, I¢ll at least be non-deficient in potassium: Linux packed out a bunch of bananas and shared. In gratitude I gave him Burn¢s can of beer from two days earlier. I¢d felt compelled to pack it out, but I didn¢t really want it. Linux and Dave pulled ahead on the stretch down Pond Flats so I walked the last five miles or so alone. Some lovely trail ¢ Watauga Lake is beautiful, and even has a rope swing ¢ but it was beginning to rain again (day ten; so much for the weather clearing) so I opted not to go swimming, and to hurry on to the shelter instead.
Date: 2005-05-01
From: Watauga Lake Shelter, (NC/TN?)

To: Grassy campsites, (NC/TN?)
Miles today: 11.6

It finally cleared up this morning ¢ has the sunshine really returned? Dave spent part of the morning frolicking around the shelter modeling some tiny little kids¢-size red fleece jacket that had been left behind, which in turn inspired Bootz to try it on, which in turn inspired Serenity to try it on¢¦thru hiking: a laugh a minute. I was distressed to find my toiletries ziplock missing this morning ¢ I used it last night! Where could it possibly have gone? (And no, it is not in with the quinoa like the missing spork was, I checked.) So I am temporarily without toothbrush or toothpaste or floss or contact lenses or saline. Thank God, my glasses weren¢t in the bag, so I still have those; I wear disposable contacts anyway so I¢ll get another pair out of my bounce box when I get to Damascus in a few days; and I can bum toothpaste off other people till then, too. Headed out with Linux this morning and the sun was out full tilt by the time we¢d gotten a mile down to Watauga Dam, so we took advantage of the weather to spread all our damp stuff out to dry. Had not foreseen the downside to spreading out clothes and sleeping bags next to a reservoir when the wind is high¢¦we had a few panicked moments with one of us divebombing our stuff to hold it down bodily while the other scrambled around getting rocks to weigh everything down with and keep it from blowing into the water. Walking on, I made some crack about how a bizarre concrete structure down at the far end of the dam looked like something out of Myst, or Riven. Linux said, ¢Yeah, except if this were Myst it¢d be covered by a grid of unexplained symbols decodable only by animal tracks you should have been paying attention to for days.¢ This made me laugh, and then ten minutes later, I remembered it and laughed again, and Linux asked what was so funny and I said ¢uh ¢¦same joke.¢ I am finding that this is becoming something of a trend out here, that mentally recycling jokes can keep me entertained for hours. Amazing, the mileage one can get out of a single joke. For instance: I think of anagramming OPOP, and it still makes me laugh. You can call it lowered standards, but I prefer to think of it as an extended frame of appreciation. Not many people out today, or at least most of them are ahead. Zigzagged with Free and Serenity a few times. Sunshine breaks calling and who am I to resist? Linux played the pennywhistle rather well and I played mine rather poorly. A long lunch at Vandeventer, where there¢s a beautiful view out over the valley. I was headed for Iron Mtn. Shelter, but a mile or two earlier, stumbled upon Serenity, up in a tree at lovely grassy campsites calling for an early stop. And why not? So Free and Serenity and Linux and I stayed.
Date: 2005-05-03
From: More campsites, TN!

To: The Place, Damascus, VA
Miles today: 8.9

Welcome to Virginia! A beautiful day and a beautiful new state, arrival in which was celebrated by a double-teamed poop break (¢brownblazing,¢ for the cultured among you), one person uphill in Tennessee, the other downhill in Virginia. I¢m a firm believer in imbuing quotidian events, like state-line crossings, with a sense of the ceremonial.Cuppa Joe was a lovely welcoming committee at the Welcome to Damascus sign; reunions were extended further when I ran into Scholar, who has been in town for an extended period of time for reasons I still do not fully understand. But it was terrific to see her, and only a few minutes later I saw Poet, Freedom, Thatch, Socks, and Butterfly Moon down the street. Damascus shares a little of the Hot Springs everything-and-everyone-is-right-on-Main-Street charm. Linux and I found Nick and Dave and Pacman. ¢Did you see the Grindstaff memorial?¢ asked Pacman. ¢Insane, right? What did it say again?¢ ¢Uncle Nick Grindstaff: Lived alone, suffered alone, died alone. Dec. 25 1851 ¢ July 23 1923.¢ I said, and Pacman said ¢Thanks, Rain Man.¢A mass of people all went to get pizza at Sicily¢s. I somehow convinced myself that I¢d be full if I ordered a Greek salad; I should have known better, since I inhaled the salad and a spare slice of Scholar¢s pizza and then decided I was fully warmed up and ready to split another pizza with Nick and Dave. Dave, who had purchased both candy cigarettes and a toy rubber dinosaur at the dollar store, kept himself occupied while waiting for the pizza to come by making the dinosaur smoke. It¢s so good to see kids who can keep themselves entertained these days.The boys went off to get milkshakes ¢ Pacman owed Linux one, having lost a bet several days before about the meaning of ¢abscond¢ ¢ and since my appetite, while voracious, does not begin to hold a candle to theirs, I passed on the milkshakes and went on a mission to replace the missing items from my toiletries bag (six toothbrushes for a dollar!), and then to take a shower and do laundry. I take extreme pleasure in bathing these days. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, etcetera.Coming out of the laundromat, I was pleasantly surprised to see Cuppa Joe again, with Nuffy ¢ a hiker from last year whose journal I¢d followed. I felt like I knew her already, which is one of those sort of weird side effects of having and reading online journals, but any potential creepiness on my part was mitigated by the fact that she¢d been reading mine, too. So, you know, instant friends. Just add water. (Like everything else on the trail.) It was a pleasure to meet her.Spent the night at The Place, a donations-only hostel run by the local church, and upon which I hereby bestow the award for Most Direct Name Ever, Except Maybe For ¢Deep Gap.¢
Date: 2005-05-04
From: The Place, Damascus, VA

To: The Place, Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Pacman, Linux, Nick, Dave, and I went to the Dairy King for breakfast where much coffee was consumed and I had a pretty good veggie omelet and the women behind the counter were a trip and a half: despite their thick local accents (¢I don¢t speak Dixie,¢ said Dave to me, a little desperately) they managed to convey a beautifully snarky outlook on life, clear as crystal. ¢Does anybody want anything while I HAVE a minute?¢ one of them yelled. Linux got the all you can eat pancakes but stopped before he was full because the counter ladies were starting to make fun of him. There was, to Linux¢ and Nick¢s great edification, a jukebox at the Dairy King. Unfortunately, this jukebox didn¢t have ¢Don¢t Stop Believing¢ on it, so Linux settled for putting Hey Ya on repeat. In the afternoon I spent a while at the Damascus library, using the computer and taking advantage of the crayons at the kids¢ table to make a Mother¢s Day card; later I ended up at the highly-touted Baja Caf© for lunch. I can attest that the rumors are true. These burritos are dangerous.Cuppa, Scholar, Linux, Nick, Dave, and I went into Abingdon this evening to see the Hitchhiker¢s Guide to the Galaxy movie, which proved to be only so-so, but it was still fun to see a movie. More memorable was the ride there and back: Cuppa¢d borrowed a pickup truck from someone, but there was only room for two in the cab, so Cuppa drove and listened to Enya on repeat with Nick while the rest of us huddled close in the back for warmth, bouncing up and down on the roads and bracing against the wind.Cuppa¢s been busy scheming and scheduling and arranging a shuttle with the local church to pick up a large group of us in a week¢s time to take us all back here for Trail Days. He¢s been running around with sheets of paper marked Plans A, B, and C ¢ varying depending on how far we think we want to walk pre-Trail Days ¢ and I think the currently chosen incarnation has us getting to Atkins by next Thursday, which means it¢s going to be an extremely leisurely week. It didn¢t take much convincing for me to jump on board the Slow Train.After the movie we got back to town and went to The Place and drank coffee and talked and wrote postcards and stayed up late late late playing with Play-Doh and Mad Libs which, I should add, are the two most incredible hiker-box finds ever.
Date: 2005-05-05
From: The Place, Damascus, VA

To: Feathercamp Branch campsites, VA
Miles today: 5.6

Today: More shower. More Dairy King. More jukebox. More Hey Ya, and this time a little What Goes On to balance it out, in a really weird tenor-track-only recording. More snarky counter ladies. More coffee. More library, huddled over a Columbia poetry anthology, copying out poems to carry with on the trail.So it was a repetitive day. There¢s a certain charm in repetition. There¢s a certain charm in burritos, too. Which is why I then found myself back at the Baja Caf©, where Nick and Dave wrote notes to each other in Finnish and Linux and I bugged them to translate it while Pacman rolled his eyes, and I bit the bullet, by which I mean bit the burrito. The beautiful people at the Baja will grande any burrito for you for two extra bucks. The thing is the size of a baby. They say it weighs two pounds. It¢s impossible to eat a two pound tempeh burrito neatly (I would imagine it is also difficult to eat a baby neatly), so I didn¢t bother trying, but Dave found the sight of a five-two girl stuffing her face with a two pound burrito oddly enthralling, which was a little gratifying. I felt like a minor celebrity, albeit one noteworthy for somewhat dubious reasons.This burrito escapade naturally raises the question: exactly how long does it take for a two pound burrito to fully exit one¢s digestive tract? Stay tuned. Pacman was staying in town on business another couple of days but told us he¢d catch us in a few days, which wouldn¢t be difficult considering the Slow Train trajectory. It took the other four of us so long to actually get our asses out of Damascus (which kind of rhymes) that it was nearly dark by the time we¢d gone five miles (though the five miles flew while I listened to Dave rhapsodize about the many virtues of Chicago) so we stayed at campsites right near the road and heard trucks go by all night and slept under the stars.