Date: 2007-06-06
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

It's been awhile since I've hit up a computer and lots has happened. First off, about a week and a half ago Wrong Turn and I decided to go our seperate ways. It was too much pressure for me to hike with someone else, especially at the rate we were going, and I've gotta admit, I'm really enjoying myself now hiking my own hike and all.... naps on top of balds, random reading breaks, singing ridiculous songs to birds that fly by. But I did have an awesome time with Wrong Turn when hiking together, he taught me sooo much about the trail and playing pool in random towns was awesome. I'm not quite sure if I'll make it all the way to Maine now, I'm still hiking long days but I want to take more time to enjoy the trip and towns along the way... maybe NYC final destination?? We'll see.I think I'm finally getting my trail legs and all the painful blisters on my feet are turning into calusses, which is totally disgusting but makes me happy! I also decided to buy some trekking poles in Hot Springs and they've helped out loads, I have virtually no knee pain now... man, life is good when you're body isn't falling to pieces.For the past week I've been hiking with a great band of folks, I'd like to give a shout out to Squirrel, Barbarosa, Big Cat, Pain Train, Blue Song, and Unicycle Pirate. We are a crazy bunch of folks, so much fun and ridiculous antics, life out here is very silly, it's gonna be hard to hit up the real world once again. Oh yea, and I'm officially Spill the Beans now. You see, a few of us hiked a mile off of 19E to a convenience store and decided to buy fajita supplies for dinner that night... so we got peppers, onions, diced tomatoes, salsa, tortillas, cheese, rice, beans.... man, it was awesome... except for the extra 5 lbs each of us carried the next 10 miles! Anyways, I was in charge of heating up the beans and definately spilled them in the fire to the great disappointment of my hiking buddies... many were salvaged but every once in a while we'd hit a wood chip in our fajita! Thus, Spill the Beans, Beans for short.Hiking has been a blast, there were loads of beautiful places the 100 miles before Damascus. I absolutely love walking across all of the balds, and the weather has pretty much been gorgeous each day. I stayed at Uncle Johnny's in Erwin, TN with Unicycle Pirate and it was pretty awesome. We rode old crappy bikes into town and swam in the river for a really long time. I also met a crazy guy by the name of Tyvek, he's been hiking barefoot since Katahdin and it shows, nastiest feet I've ever seen! He's hilarious but completely inappropriate which was awesome... kinda hard to explain unless you've met the guy. There was also an older gentleman by the name of Richard who was a really interesting person, he's done a lot in his life and is one of the most peacful people I've ever metWe all stayed at the Kinkora Hostel a few days ago and Bob Peoples (the owner of the place) somehow conviced us to do some volunteer trail maintenance. In return he slack packed us the 10 miles from Dennis Cove to Wautauga Lake, it was so nice with 5 lb day packs on...and there was quite a steep climb before the lake! Bob told Barbarosa and me about a sweet hidden swimming hole that was about a half mile off the trail and it was amazing, there was a little waterfall and a big ol' bowl of river water that was really cold but excellent to swim in. All of us had a great time swimming in the lake and drinking way too many Busch Lites on the beach. We had some trail magic when a family there offered us about 3/4 of their massive watermelon. I can't even describe how that was the best tasting watermelon I've had in my entire life! Trail maintenance was hard and 7 hours long but it definately made me appreciate the trail a lot more. We swung polaskis (sp?), lopped branches, and broke large rocks into little rocks with 10 lb. sledgehammers (my favorite part Afterwards, the volunteers provided a huge picnic lunch for us all, deeelicious.Right now I'm taking my first zero day in Damascus, VA (well, maintenance was technically one!) and it's awesome. Last night we all enjoyed crazy antics at Dot's Place and ran into Baltimore Jack and Lone Wolf. Good times, good times. They provided a liquor run for us this morning which is much appreciated. Tonight we're staying in someone's back yard with Jack and I anticipate a crazy awesome night. My stomach's currently digesting massive amounts of pizza and I think ice cream is calling my name.....-spill the beans