Date: 2009-04-26
From: Damascus, VIRGINIA!!

To: Damascus, Virginia!
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Cell noneOG notesAs we sit around loafing and resting I had a thought about the trail. I've been asked many times about my 2006 hike and one question kept coming up. "Did you ever want to quit hiking and go home?" My answer was always "No I never felt that way." Now I'm being asked "Why do you want to hike it again?"Let me answer question two first. I'm hiking it again to share the experience with C6. Most of the greatest feelings in my life had been shared with her. Our wedding and her sharing her life with me is first and foremost. Then the birth of our children Cindy and Chris, who are no longer children. The birth of our grandchildren Kyle, Natalie, Tyler and Steven. And the many proud and wonderful things that have happened in the 39 years we've been married. Hiking the AT in 2006 was a solo undertaking and I left C6 knowing she missed something. Right now I love hiking with her and sharing this great experience. We find ourselves struggling with equipment, feet, hills, and weather which sometimes can get us down. Those factors were there in 2006 too except I felt the weather was a little better then. All those factors play into the experience, if this were easy more people would be doing it. Also each experence gets its own embelishment in the folklore of the OG / C6 thru-hike.Now to answer question one, "Did I ever want to quit hiking and go home?" Both in 2006 and now there were times that hiking wasn't or isn't fun but all in all I enjoy myself out here. I look forward to warmer weather when we don't have to jump in our sleeping bags in early evening to stay warm. I look forward to longer sunlight hours each day so we can take our time hiking. I look forward to warmer days so we can take decent break. We've been taking short, fast breaks if any because we get cold when we stop. So does any of that bring on the feeling of quitting, no because I know these things will happen as the seasons progress into Spring and Summer. The best is yet to come! In 2006 I had no idea how gratifying it would be to hike the final mile to reach the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine. I kept going because I was enjoying myself and I was accomplishing something each and every day. I figure we're hiking the eqivalant of a Half Marathon each hiking day. The endorphins are flowing in our bodies and we take on the feelings an adrenaline junky feels. It's almost like being high on life.So here is a composite answer to both questions. I love sharing that feeling with C6 and I'm both glad and greatful she wants to do it with me. I am so glad I'm with a woman who likes to do the same things I like to do. She's a corageous person with a lot of determination to be out here with me. I think we'll make it all the way because she's as determined as I am to see it out.I do need to address some of the feelings we've been having lately. We started hiking knowing we had to take it slow. We were full of adrenaline, hopes and dreams. We knew what we couldn't do and decided to be cautious in not taking on too much too fast. Then as time went on we hiked that 15 mile day and felt like we had arrived into that milage range only to discover, we could do it occasinally but not every day. Then as the terrain got more difficult we kept trying to keep the daily mileage up. Little did we know how hard we were pushing ourselves and how tired we were becoming. Tired sore hikers tend to become weaker yet their expectations keep growing. We kept telling ourselves "We've been hiking X amount of time, we should be doing so much better now". The problem with that thinking is it's unrealistic. Instead of becoming super hikers we were wearing down and not meeting our own expections.By staying in Damascus two zero days we are hoping to rest enough to move on healthy and stronger. If we achieve that we'll enjoy the next section a lot more. If we enjoy that more we'll continue on with a more positive outlook and an easier time adapting to the trail.By doing nothing strenuous today and just relaxing and unwinding we should go out of here in much better spirits and shape. We have a lot of Virginia to hike 535 miles, approximately 1/4 of our journey. We'll start off elated to be in a new state, then later on we'll begin to want to see progress by going into another state. We have friends in the Lynchburg area and family in Culpepper to visit. We have a family gathering planned for Memorial Day that should be a real morale boost. Then soon after that we will hit a new state, West Virginia, and we'll start going through others quickly. It's all part of the experience that makes this kind of a hike so special. The mid Atlantic states will go by quickly, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. These states tend to be less mountainous we'll still have climbs and gaps but they won't be as severe. I'll leave the details of that part of the journey out for now I'm sure we'll describe them as they unfold.I guess what I'm getting at here is each part of the trail has its own unique set of challanges. Also we keep changing and with that we have to approach each section differently. It's adapt and conquer rather than stay the same and fight it the whole way. We have to accept the challanges and figure the solutions as we go. We'll make it as long as there are no injuries to either one of us.C6 notesIt's going to be hard to get back on the trail tommorrow. Since we did almost all our chores yesterday (the only one left is to mail a box home at the Post Office before we start hiking tomorrow), we are just loafing around today. It's a spectacular sunny day and Miss Ginny has a wonderful porch and hammocks and swinging seats out back next to the river. Only one frustration about being here...we didn't expect to be able to use a computer, so we mailed our camera memory card to our son right away on Friday. We have had hours and hours of time on Miss Ginny's high-speed computer and could have uploaded everything this weekend. Argh! That's bugging me to no end because I want to let you see our photos as fast as possible. If we had only waited until first thing tomorrow to mail the card. Oh well, we didn't expect this computer opportunity.We've been enjoying reading friend's trail jourals, the notes you have written to us in our Trail Journal Guest entries, and checking out our Facebook sites to see what's going on with friends and family. I read the whole Sunday newspaper for the first time since we started hiking, including my favorite section...the comics! That was nice. Miss Ginny's B & B is off the main street of town, so sitting on the porch is heaven. A comfortable breeze, birds singing all around, and very few vehicles go by. So peaceful. We sat on the porch of the B & B where Adin is staying yesterday afternoon and cars and motorcycles went by constantly. I'm loving this peacefulness. But, as I said a bit ago, it makes it hard to think about getting back on the AT again tomorrow....with the aches and pains and uphills again. Oh well. This is one of the perks of hiking the AT. Have to take the good with the challenges, or we won't get to Maine!Old Goat & Check Six