Date: 2004-06-14
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Shenandoah RiverFinal stretch of 75-mile river tripFridayI'm asleep face down in a field by the river, my nose and cheekspressed against a laminated Virginia state map, laid out to keep thegrass and bugs from itching my face whilst I sleep. I'm hot and tiredand happy as a bovine up to her teats in cool flowing river water. Iawake with a start and Spiceman hands me a cool Coke, a big smile onhis face.Yesterday far downriver from Spider Island, he discovered his trekkingpoles missing. One hundred-forty dollar Black Diamond poles, M.I.A.,left on Comatose Beach after a night bleary in memory from a full dayof whiskey and pills and sun and fun and beer, well, thus our gonzogiven name for our 8x12 patch of island sand. Spiceman recalls littleof the night, including failed attempts to erect his Beta Light tent, atarp-like tent that uses a hiker's trekking poles as tent poles. Thenext morning in the pale light of new day dawn and spider-bite hangovers and the ever-pressing junkie-like urge to move, Onward! thepoles easily escaped a lackadaisical inventory of the beach and were leftbehind forever. When you're hiking the trail, you know very quickly if you've forgottenyour poles. Not so out here on the river. Ten miles or so later,their absence was at last noted. I don't know how. For by then wewere drunk again. Or maybe just I was drunk?Poor Spiceman, I thought. First he loses his special smoking spice, afat baggy left in some field the first morning. Then his poles. Idon't deal in spice, don't even smoke it. So I don¢t know which loss wasmore costly. So now up comes Spiceman with a big grin and a coupla Cokes and he'sgot through on the phone at Down River Rafting, the only phone formiles kindly provided by owner John whilst his prick competitor acrossthe highway told us we'd have to hike another miles to the state parkfor a phone. And anyway, Spiceman got through to Garret at BlackDiamond to see about replacement poles. I'm just dying to hear whatstory he gave the company rep. "I told him I'm off the trail, doing a little aqua blazing, giving thefeet a rest, brought my poles along to set up my Beta Light tent (alsoa Black Diamond product - hear the smooth pitch?), and well, there wasbourbon involved and a lot of beer and well.. and then Garret says,`You lost them.' And I say yeah." Black Diamond, via their rep with a good rap Garret, is FedXingSpiceman a brand new set of poles. Wow. I guess it's true what I've heard along the trail. The gearcompanies really are eager to please the long-distance hikers. Theyknow how word travels on the trail, and a bad rap, well, they don'twant it. But wow, man! To replace a guy's poles when he comes right out andhonestly admits losing them in some gonzo mad river re-enactment of Fear & Loathing in Vegas! Olympian Thruhiker's poles lost in anoff trail drunken haze! You gotta love it! God Bless America, andBlack Diamond, too.Well, looks like some Class Two rapids up ahead. Better pack up thekeyboard and Palm Pilot, slap em in their little triple-thick Ziplocsand throw em in the dry bag, as I have done a hundred times in the pastfew days. Gonzo journalism on the water. Bet HST never did that!-RSM[Postscript: Almost all of the preceding Shenandoah River chapters werein fact written while underway in a heavy-laden canoe full of booze &450 pounds of hard hiker meat and bedeviled on all sides by splashingcrashing waves, diving turtles and swooping terradactile-like blueherons, all moving at incredible speed downstream in the good,God-fearing, backwards ass antigravity and illogical direction ofNORTH! Yes, folks, we're still going to Maine, but we're coloringoutside the lines a bit and loving it, every league, every liter, everymad gonzo blaze of the way.]-RSMFor the full stroy of Rick's journey, visit Jigglebox.com