Date: 2010-05-19
To: Home/Thanks/and Traveling Alone
Miles today: 0.0

Yes, to those who have asked, I am home, having completed the section of the AT I planned for 2010. I jumped into things very quickly aafter flying home after visiting my daughter and her family for 5 days following completion of trail. I got on the plane with no problem using an old (expired one year) passport sent to me by my son. The next day two things happened: Vicki at the Doyle called and said they had found my driver's license. They had it all the time. It had just gotten lost in some other papers they had. A lesson to me is to pay more attention when someone takes my drivers license for ID and be sure I get it back. They did send it to me but the second thing I did after arriving in Washington was to get a new drivers license. Thank you to Mary W from church who drove me where I needed to go to get the license.Then after getting to sleep one night in my own bed I was off to Vancouver to a church convention. That was followed by preaching on Sunday and finally, Sunday afternoon I finally felt like I was home. Since then I have been busy weeding, hitting the grocery store, going to previously made Dr's appointments, etc. No, my pictures are not yet up on this journal but I will get them up as soon as I can do so.I want to thank those who have signed my journal. This site usually sends me the sign in entries to my email site along with the email address of those who sign in. For some reason I do not know, this has not been happening so I am not able to individually email many of you and thank you and answer your questions so I will try to do so here. Thank you! It is a great encouragement to all hikers to look in their on-line guest book and see encouraging notes!Thanks to Jennifer and B Squared and Loretta and TLC and Slane and Paddy, and Kathy Preble and Petunia and Shady and Don and Tattoo Man and Sherry and Patti and Outlook and especially to She Who Hikes In A Car and Winkle. And I probably missed some but thank you to you all.I think I answered B Squared from the trail about Holden Evening Prayer. If not, ask again.Good to hear form Loretta and Kathy Preble and Patti again! And I too enjoyed our meeting at Bake Oven Knob Shelter, Shady and Don.Petunia, sorry I did not know of you before I got to DWG but thanks for the offer of support even if I didn't get it until past DWG. I think it was Slane and Paddy who were hoping we would meet somewhere on the trail. That didn't happen this year but one never knows when or if it will on the trail and I seem to run into people met before or met through this link. It may yet happen some day.Tattoo Mason, thanks for signing in and giving encouragement! Outlook, I hope to connect with you next year. That would be awesome!A longer answer to Pastor Sherry - it should really be a separate entry but it is going in this one:Traveling Alone - In the Girl Scouts and later in the Mountaineers I certainly learned never to hike alone. Then I started long distance hiking when I was 60. In 2004 my daughter and I did a week on the AT and I saw all the people on the trail and thought to myself, "I can do this even without my daughter." Good thing as she is too busy with her family to hike everywhere with her mother.At this stage in my life I have a sort of warped point of view. First off, I don't have many hiking years left. Sorry. That is just the fact. So I don't have all that much time to wait around until someone I know decides to be as crazy as me to go hiking these long trails. I plan my hikes - in quite a bit of detail - and send the plan off to some of my hiking friends. If someone wants to go with me, great. If not, I am going anyway.Secondly, over a great many years I have led hikes and backpack trips, first with the Girl Scouts, then with friends in college, later with church groups, etc, etc. I have been the one responsible for others on a great many trips. You know, I like to be with others but I find it quite refreshiing to go on a trip and only be responsible for myself.I also know that a great number of long distance hikers go by themselves. They may or may not meet up with someone on the trail and then hike with someone. I jokingly tell people, that often, you don't hike together but you sleep together. Meaning that often one stops at a shelter (on the AT) or at a likely camping spot (often near water on the PCT)and finds others there, sometimes the same people several days in a row. I am also a kind of ornery person and not willing to make my choices in life from fear. I am asked if I am ever afraid on the trail. Well, maybe sometimes. But rarely. I am quite comfortable camping by myself. The only critters which sometimes give me pause are not the 4-legged variety but the 2-legged ones. My comfort level has increased over time.But I remember a time 25 years or more ago when I was talking with some women and the conversation was about how horrible it was that a woman cannot walk anywhere by herself anymore. I distinctly remember listening to the conversation and thinking to myself that I was NOT going to let whether I walked alone on a street or not be dictated by others.That does not mean I go out and do lots of risky things (other than long distance hikes). But I resolve not to make all my descisions out of fear. You might notice that my journal entries when I am on the trail are never up to date current. There is a reason for that. I don't want any casual browser of trail journals who is up to no good to know precisely where I am. I do take a few precautions for safety and that is one. My transcriber knows to put the journal entries up a few days later as I tell her to. If you have read many of my journals you will also see that I have had many, many wonderful experiences with the people I meet on the trail. Unpleasant experiences are rare.Is it possible that something bad can happen to me on the trail. Sure. But then something bad can happen to me at home too and is actually more likely in a town than on the trail. If I do not come back from a trip, I hope that my friends and family can take comfort in the fact that I was doing something I really do enjoy. And yes, We are all in the hands of God. And life is good.