Date: 2003-05-19
From: U.S. 19E

To: Mountaineer Falls
Miles today: 8.3

Today was a much better day than yesterday...I slept until almost 8 at the motel. I got up as quietly as I could, so as not to disturb Cruiser and Reason, who were still asleep. I put my things together, got my backpack packed, said goodbye to Cruiser, who had woken up, and headed over to Miss Janet's house. She had not returned yet from her first run of the day...kids to school and two people to Sam's Gap...so I went down to the store and picked up some last minute items for the next few days. When I returned, Miss Janet had started cooking breakfast, but needed someone to pick up a hiker at the river. I didn't feel comfortable driving her van, but knew how to get there, so Cheesecake drove and I navigated (I know, Seester, hard to believe...see, I am learning out here!). The hiker was an 80 year old man named Cimmaron (I hope that's spelled right) from Florida. He's the second thru-hiker of that age that I've met...I sure hope I have that kind of energy when I am 80!! We brought him back and we sat down to breakfast...breakfast burritos...yummy! The question for the day was, if you could have any song play when you summit Katahdin, what would it be? I wasn't sure what I would say, but it ended up being "The Hallelujah Chorus", because I made it. We'll see if it happens! I was really flattered and embarassed when Shankadelic said he would want to hear nothing, or if anything, me singing "Me and Bobby McGee", because he came up behind me once when I was singing that, and liked it. When breakfast was over, Miss Janet took the next load of people out, and I made sure all my stuff was set for the last run, which I was on. I said goodbyes to Famous Shoes and Shankadelic, and left. We dropped hikers off at the river, Iron Mountain Gap and then us at 19E, which I left a week ago Wednesday. I started out with Hungry Hiker and Spitz, but they quickly outhiked me. I caught up with Spitz at a meadow where a mare was grazing with a young !colt (filly?). They were both beautiful...but the colt extremely so. She had light blue eyes...I had never seen that on a horse before. She was very skittish and didn't come very near us until I held out my hand. She stretched her little head out to sniff at it...it tickled, but was very cool! Some people may know, I have some fear of horses, as I got stuck on a runaway horse as a child. This was a very cathartic meeting for me! We continued on, Spitz rapidly getting ahead of me again. I almost always have a difficult time getting back into the groove of hiking after a day off, let alone several days off. Plus, my knees are continuing to hurt...I may need to add braces to my wardrobe. A little bit further down the Trail, I ran into No Pepsi. He had started at Overmountain Shelter, and was getting some water. Because I had stopped to talk, I realized that I completely missed the falls that were there...oops! We hiked together for a bit, till we arrived at a tent site where a few people were camping. I wanted to push on further tha!n that, but took a short break there. No Pepsi continued on, but I caught up with him right before the place I had decided to stop for the night, Mountaineeer Falls. He called it a day here, as well, so we set up camp and had dinner. No Pepsi shared his lemonade, hot water and tea with me, and I let him have some of my dark chocolate that I bought in Damascus. I cooked in my new pot, which worked very well. I also used AquaMira for the first time today, and I must say, it's much easier than filtering. We'll see how it goes in the future. Well, that's it for today...a lovely warm, shortish day. On to Kincora Hostel tomorrow!