Date: 2012-05-18
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Spent the last two days at Nick's parents house. I can't bring myself to spend time in the city. When you're in the woods it's like every sound, every smell, every thing you see, it matters. In the city, all the sounds, smells and sights are nonsense, pollution really. Polluting my mind and my lungs. I don't want to go anywhere near there. Out here with the Hornbergers, I can hear the birds chirp in the morning, can watch the sun set and see the stars at night. Plus Laurie brought me cake in bed one morning, so how could I leave? Spent yesterday just hanging out. We went to a shopping center in a populated area and I was shocked by the number of people there. And they're all in such a rush, hurrying to buy things they don't need. Then getting in their own individual cars to honk their horns and blow through the parking lots. All to get home to their houses full of things they don't need. Oh I also discovered owling, a branch off planking, very cool stuff. And I'm working on inventing screech owling which should really freak some people out. Spent all day today just relaxing. I read a new Gary Paulson book outside in the sun. It's the one where the boy is just canoeing around up North and finds a dog, who leads him to where a bear attacked this family. Good stuff. Didn't really do much other then that. I got all my hiking stuff together, packed food for almost a week so it's gonna be a heavy load. The new plan is to go to the VA state line and walk South. DO IT and my little brother will be coming out to walk with me next weekend, so I can decide my next move then. I want to walk really slow this time... (I bet you're thinking I'm already really slow aren't you?). I've been feeling like I'm rushed, like I have to get miles in. And then I lose sleep at night because I'm calculating how many miles a day I need to do now to go to Maine, especially because I've taken this time off. I want to go South from the VA line so that I can do the Rollercoaster (a notoriously challenging section of trail that is full of pointless up and downs). I want to really challenge my body with that. After that 50 miles, I'll be in Shenandoah where I want to relax and blue blaze a lot. I hear that there are spectacular side trails there. When I was walking Maryland the other day, I skipped a side trail because it was .25 miles off trail and I had 24 miles to do that day. I shouldn't be walking like that. I missed seeing something potentially amazing because I was rushing to finish the state. And that's crap. I'd rather bum around and see whatever I want then to rush to finish the miles. I'm finding lately that the weekenders and the section hikers have more respect and gratitude for the trail then the thru hikers. When we're out there for half a year we forget how lucky we are. Without the constant reminder that this is a vacation, a treat, we take the whole thing for granted. I'm going to try to be more like a hiker who has to go back to work on Monday when I go back out. Aside from all of that, I hurt my right ankle on day one of Maryland, can't remember if I put that in here or not. I think I just rolled it too many time on the rocks. It's been pretty painful every day so I'm trying to give it some rest. We'll see if it's strong enough when I get back out.