Date: 2004-03-29
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: clear sky

Elly & the ghost of BoudreauI die each night with the setting sun. Down it goes, falling languidlytoward my native California making me wonder, as I often do, what thehell I'm doing here. "Here" over the past many years has been manyplaces, many places not California. I have roamed nomadic, at timesecstatic, others pathetic. Now at sunset on a Sunday in North Carolinaon Standing Indian Mountain, I merely stare, stupefied, stoned byanother eight-hour endorphin rush, the result better than codeine,valium, any of that shit. We clean our pots, we hang our food againstthe bears, and I, somewhat against mountaineering protocol, leave out apremade cup of coffee for myself, sugared and creamed instant, cold butconveniently located for that early morning groggy grab out the tent,lighter in hand, pocket rocket propane stove on, coffee hot. If thebears come after that, well, let em have it. And then it's down like afighter throwing the fight, into the tent, out likes a light. At 7:30p.m. Can you believe it?-RSMhow does that song go? "New mornin, new day, gonna do things, myway.." Who's that? Foreigner? yeah. Ok, I'm old. What Ii am talkingabout? The fucking Stones are STILL performing! Feeling better today,way better. Feeling like $37 instead of the $5 I felt like yesterdaywhen I woke up. Although "woke up" isn't quite correct since I NEVERSLEPT! But that's another story, one I'll tell when I've gotten overthe shock of it. On today¢s forecast ladies and gentlemen of the Vicarious Trek, Ellyand I and a handful of other insane misfits & Amero-cuban boat refugeesfrom the Bush Disaster will be romper roomin' it over not one, but twomile-high peaks in our overpriced sneaks. The AT, I have found, has apenchant for outrageous ups and downs. it's "authors" or trailvolunteer engineers, as it were, seem to enjoy sending its adherentsway up and then way down again in roller coaster fashion. When I heardsomeone speaking of "The Roller Coaster" the other day, I thought ssurely they were speaking of some stretch over which I had alreadyclimbed. But no. THE roller coaster awaits us yet, apparently an18-mile stretch somewhere in the Smokies featuring no less than 18mountains. Eighteen mountains, eighteen miles. How manypsycho-fitness nuts did it take to screw in that topographic light bulb.I wonder. Woke up last night to sound of drops hitting the tent canopy. Just anoccasion "pop" of a raindrop, but it was enough to jerk me straightouta bed, shoes on and outa the tent. I grabbed our packs and stowedthem under this tiny vestibule of a canopy at the tent's feet end,grabbed Elly's shoes and tucked them in her side of the tent, and didthe same with mine on my side. Then I peed. You pee a lot out here. Or maybe it's just that you notice it more. Because every movement ofbladder or bowels out here is an undertaking, some more major than theother of course. Getting up in the middle of the night to tinkle isone thing. it's cold and, as in the case of last night, damp, and darkand spooky and all the rest, but once past the pain of wrenchingoneself out of one's toasty mummy bag, it ain't that bad. But amidnight movement, that's a real pain in the ass and usually requirestwice the "enthusiasm" to get outa the bag. After a largely sleeplessnight (night before last) I NEEDED sleep BAD. So last night, afterlaying there awhile entertaining the various pains in feet and kneesand so on, I said fuckit, and popped a codeine (leftover from recentwisdom tooth pull). Aside from pain reduction, codeine has the added"benefit" (in this case) of stopping you up. Result: no nocturnalinterruptions of my deep sleep campaign to answer any unwanted callfrom, you know.. Nature. So yeah, so much for my highfalutin talk aboutendorphin highs at sunset. That high only lasts about half an hour. Beyond that, you're on your own. Like a good boy scout, I cameprepared.-RSMElly is gone. The walk in the woods today was strange. No, she didn'tgo "off trail" as is the kind verbiage for quitting. And no, she didn'tdisappear. I have a pretty good idea where she is. Do I miss her? Yes. I'm lying here in a shelter on some mountain ataround mile 110. Beside me lay a man rumored to be a gargantuansnoring machine. We'll see. I could have set up my tent, but it rainsnow, and it could freeze tonight, bringing snow. And in a way it issymbolic. I met Elly in a shelter and haven't slept in one since. Islept with Elly. We shared my groovy little two person tent everynight. The boys out around the fire are talking about Bill Bryson's book AWalk in the Woods. The review is largely critical. we are laid outhere in the old wooden shelter like bagged corpses after a massacre. Our packs hang from large nails driven into the wall above us so mypack is suspended right over my head. The wall is not much longer thanmy body laid out lengthwise to my left. The back hanging wall at myhead. And a third wall six sleeping-bag-widths away to my right. I amin the leftmost corner. Rain dances on the tin roof over head. Theroof extends farther than the walls, almost by double, creating acovered cooking area, what someone called a pavilion. Some guy fromsouth Boston with the thickest accent I've ever heard and a thus-farcurt, demeanor loiters at the butcher block-like table in the center ofthe open area. He eats and paces, his bright headlamp beam scanningthe darkness annoyingly. I don't know where to begin in telling youwhy Elly is gone. It was getting quiet toward the end. Now it's dead quiet. I've heardthey don't allow chainsaws out here, not even for the trail volunteerswho clear fallen trees from the trail. There is only birdsong. Woodpeckers mostly. And the clink-clink of my titanium poles on thetrail. I look at myself and feel I must look like every kid I knew inschool with arm-brace crutches, kids with CP, Leukemia, what have you. But I am not disabled, not physically. And so I walk on steady andsturdy determined to make a good go of this for the physically disabledeverywhere, for every limping, crutch-addled person I've ever seen onthe street whose infirmity has set me teary-eyed and smacked my bluescross the face real fast. Incidentally, Duke, the tiny action figurefrom Doonsbury that I stole from my art car to carry on my pack haslost both his arms. Poor Duke is a paraplegic, but he's still withme, riding proud."When you goad me I start farting," says Fast Eddy from Louisiana. Navigator is giving him shit about snoring, as he is rumored to do. There are two tiny dogs running around. they belong to Dirtnap, a lawstudent gone native now running around the Appalachians in shorts andTevas and a mop of brown hair stoking a smoky fire to cook his food by.He has been hiking north since January, having begun in the FloridaKeyes. Says he walked some stretches in a foot or more water for milesat a time through the swamps of that state. Tinker is a very hungry19-year old with a great enthusiasm for gear. He made his own alcoholstove based on recent popular soda can designs published in Backpackerand on the Boy Scouting website. When I arrived today he was surveyinga massive sprawl of food before him. "This is four days worth," heexplained to me. "That's why my bag weighs 45 pounds. For my wholefirst hour or so here, he was eating, trying to force down as much aspossible to reduce his pack weight. Tinker is in the National Guard andmay get called off the trail at any moment to go serve his country inIraq or elsewhere. Sanguine is a schoolteacher from Providence RI,taking a year off to go get dirty and cold and sore in the mountains. She has a big bright lime green pack cover that made me wanna call herMiss Margarita coming down the trail today. Navigator from Seattle, Iwould have called him Yodeler for his classic Swiss Alpen hiker look. I want to talk about Elly. But I can't. I miss her. But then again Idon't. It's hard to mash two people from totally different worldstogether for ten days, twenty-four seven as it were, especially in thispressure cooker 1st month wherein the attrition rate is 40 percent. We're all just too unique and too fulla our own ghosts and quirks anddemons and doubts. We tried. The smoke from the wood fire outsidedrifts in here into the shelter in sufficient quantities that I feelready to sneeze any moment. And the little dogs walk rounds betweenour bags looking for someone to snuggle up with. The fire is a goodthing to a point. It warms us and gives us a little nightlife wherenormally there is none. But then the eight o¢clock zonk bell goes offin my now-conditioned head, I want the fire to die out and the boys togo to bed. Their dialogue is far too clear. I think it's time to takea Quaalude and call it a night.-RSMFor the full story of Rick's journey, visit Jigglebox.com