Date: 2005-05-17
From: Pearisburg, Va

To: 1 mile from Rice Field Shelter
Miles today: 8.7
Weather: broken clouds

I am walking down the street in Pearisburg right now, about 2:00 in the afternoon. Things got a little screwed up here because the library doesn¢t open till 12. In order for me to upload these journals, I¢ve got to find some place where I can plug into a USB port. The only place here is the library.At any rate, today was still a good day. I woke up with all kinds of plans to take care of things today. About half of them didn¢t work out.I walked to the library, and of course I was carrying my bump box and my supply box and everything. Probably another 20 pounds on top of my 30 pound food box. It¢s a very tiring thing because the hostel is so far away from everything. It¢s a two mile walk back and forth from all that¢s going on. I can tell you this. From the last time that I put in a journal, I think it was 44 and change for extra miles. Since this time yesterday, I have easily put in another ten miles in this town, walking around, trying to get to places. So, rather than to be exact, I¢m going to say that I¢ve put in 50 extra miles of trail-es-trial miles up to right now.In the mean time I¢m walking into the Pizza Hut and I¢ve got to pee real badly. Give me a minute and I¢ll start again. I¢m back at a Pizza Hut, and what a horrible experience that was. Vern and I were talking just a couple nights ago about how all this heavy hiking makes you have urges to go to the bathroom without warning; really immediately. That¢s what just was happening to me. As I was turning the recorder off, I couldn¢t get into the Pizza Hut fast enough. I swear, it was 30 seconds between the time I turned this thing off and when I got in the bathroom and I could not hold peeing that long. I ended up peeing on myself. It¢s crazy. I haven¢t done this since I was a kid. I just locked the door in the Pizza Hut bathroom. I took off my pants and my spandex shorts and washed them out because I couldn¢t hold my urine in. What a horrible experience. Anyway, I¢m in Pearisburg; I¢m heading to the library; it¢s late in the day. I¢ve got to make 11 or 12 miles today to catch up to OC1 and Albert. I told them to go ahead and leave early because of the screw up of the library times. They¢re going to be waiting for me at the shelter or at a campsite a mile and a half past the shelter. It¢s all uphill. 1300 feet of uphill from here. I¢m going to have a long night ahead of me. I seriously thought about saying ¢screw it¢ to the journals. I¢ll catch up again when I get to another town, but that could be weeks from now. I¢m a great procrastinator; if I do not take care of stuff now, I will not take of it later. The extra trail-es-trial miles. So many of them yesterday. Walking into town; walking back from the hostel; walking back to the hostel; walking back into town today; walking to the library; walking to the laundromat; to the stores; to food. It¢s just crazy. I¢ll call it fifty and that¢s very conservative; just because it¢s an easy number to start from again. Fifty trail-es-trial miles at this point. The guy I met at the bar last night while I was having my Long Island Ice Teas actually works at the Motor Lodge Hotel. I got him to let me use the computer at the Motor Lodge. Unfortunately, it doesn¢t have a USB connection, so I couldn¢t do anything. In the meantime, I stopped by for a Long Island Iced Tea at the sports bar connected to them. I ran up to Horizon, who was in there. He ran into town last night at 11:00 at night, down that nasty assed downhill, with the Seattle crew. By the way, I still have not given all their trail names, even though I know them by now.The Seattle crew is Heather, who is Montana Lush. We have Crazy Legs, who is Casey. We have Brandon, who is Scavenger. We have Catch-23.This has been a day in Pearisburg. It¢s been a lot of fun. A lot of shopping. A lot of walking. And by the time I get to camp, if I feel like it, I¢m going to be walking in the dark, and I¢m going to be too damned tired to record again. Anything that happens at the end of the day, will be between me and a beer. What a waste of time at the library. It's going on 3 o'clock. I just walked away from there and only managed to get a few days worth of journal entries out. The computer here is screwing up so badly. It keeps restarting the upload. After sitting there for an hour and a half, I gave up. The end result is, I'm just going to have to do it somewhere else.The worst part of it is, I have to walk another mile and a half to the Sports Bar. I managed to talk the waitress there into holding my back pack while I went to the library. I'm going to slap on my pack on and walk another mile and a half to where the Trail starts. I have to walk 8.7 miles right f#*king uphill! It's like 1,400 feet. I go past the first shelter where, theoretically, OC1 and Albert will be waiting for me at the campground. They left 2 hours ahead of me. I don't like rushing like this. The reason we are doing this is because, if we don't get the miles in today and for the next 3 days, we will be sitting in Catawba for 2 days waiting for the post office to open. That's unacceptable to just hang around a town waiting for a post office to open. The whole point is to try to get to Catawba by 11 o'clock to get mail drops there, otherwise I'd be taking my time. This is why you don't send packages to Post Offices on the Appalachian Trail unless absolutely necessary. This package was supposed to go to 4 Pines Hostel, which was open all the time, but they closed up and the stuff got diverted to Catawba.It's 3:30 and I'm walking across the bridge out of Pearisburg. It's a strong feeling you get walking the AT, and walking in and out of towns. It's amazing how heightened the senses become. We walked in here with all kinds of expectations yesterday. We were all excited about the eating and the Long Island Iced Teas. Just hanging around and being around all the stuff you grew up with all your life, the cars and stuff.   You come into town and you realize you hate it; the noise, the people being too close to you. Within 24 hours you get used to it. Then you don't want to leave.There I was, at the Post Office, fighting every minute to try to get out of there as fast as possible and really not wanting to go. I left my pack at the Sports Bar so I could walk faster back and forth. I stopped at the Sports Bar and had a Dos Xs and started walking out of here. Mark, the guy who I met last night from the Motor Lodge Hotel, happened to be pulling out and offered me a ride back to the Trail, which I gratefully took.Once I'm on the Trail and walking, I know it's the best thing to do. I'm feeling good now. I put my headphones on and the first thing I heard was Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing. I'm about to walk into the woods again.Stupid, crazy climb. It's almost 4 o'clock and I have to go over 1,400 vertical feet. It's all going to be over in an hour or two. Whatever it takes to get over this f*#king hill. I'm probably going to have to walk in the dark for awhile to find my buddies. I'm going to pitch my hammock tonight. This will be my first time using my hammock this time around. Then another 4 days being in the woods and thinking about being in town with All You Can Eat Chinese Food, pizza, hamburgers, beer, and Long Island Iced Teas. Here we go again.It was a nasty, nasty uphill, especially after having the Long Island Iced Teas and filling up on food. I got up there before dark. I found Albert and OC1. I got my hammock set up under very windy conditions. I'm going to have a difficult time with it because it will take me some getting used to sleeping in it again. Once I get used to it, I know I'll sleep pretty well. I brought a book with me. I'm actually going to waste the energy carrying the extra weight of a book. Now I'll have something to do at night before I go to sleep. I've got Dean Koontz's Icebound that I got from the hostel.