Date: 2004-06-28
From: Maine

To: Maine
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Mile 1091Gonzo Stealth Camp Alpha BravoJune 28, 04Much to my surprise this evening, I realized that today is my onehundredth day. One hundred days of living in the forest. Big deal? Yeah, I think so. Even more remarkable than passing the 1000-mile marklast week. Because what with aqua-blazing the Shenandoah¢s and a dozenor so miles lost to emergency car rides for some medical purpose, it'shard to say exactly how many miles I have hiked. I can say withassurance that when I finish this "round" in Duncannon, PA on Thursdayat the Doyle Hotel, I will most certainly have hiked 1000 miles, as Iwill then be at mile mark 1133. But today, tonight rather, this is Day100. Pretty exciting, really. And what a strange day it was, too. Awaking this morning to the loud and monotone jabber-jabber of a femalehiker who shall remain nameless. She's nice, but for my tastes shetalks too much.   Grumpy thus, I set out on addled right ankle into amorning of exponentially increasing pain, worse with every step. Atthe end of this 20-mile day, which would be about 4000 paces. I think?Then the shorn-head gang-banger looking guy with the cool Japaneseletters inked into his neck gives me four 800 mg ibuprofens, a Godsendas I hobbled near tears at noon. Then just flying in and out of Birchrun Shelter although Big Stick wanted to (and did) stay awhile and waitout the coming rain. I was in too much pain. Just wanted to "getthere," wherever there was. Today "there" was Pine Grove Furnace, some old historic site with anupper-class International Youth Hostel and a State Park with more rulesthan there are words in the book of Proverbs (they were posted, everyfrikken word, in agate type tiny print on a giant poster all over thepark). It had been my intension to overnight there. But when I wasthere, the vibe was just all wrong. I watched with mild amusement asthree of my fellow thruhikers made themselves sick on Hershey's icecream whilst engaged in the "Half-gallon challenge," a long-standing ATtradition that for some reason takes place right there, at the tinygeneral store at Pine Grove Furnace. The rules for that are simple:show up, buy ice cream, eat the whole damn thing and voila! You're awinner! And dead dog sick tonight, I'm betting. I got outa there. I took a look at Austin's topo map, ascertained thatthe anal-ass State Park and its police force (one gigantic constipatedlooking dyke cop with a gun and the posture of a string puppet beingpulled upward by its nipples came by the store while I was there) endedwithin a mile on the trail. After that, I knew, would be forest,forest and more forest. Unpoliced, unpopulated. Walk in and vanish. I love the forest for that. So I walked on, much to the disbelief ofthe bloated ice cream champions and late-comer Big Stick who all knew Iwas walkin' in a world of pain. But on I went anyway. And amazingly,at 6:30 in the evening with ice cream behind me and freedom ahead, Ididn't feel pain. Not for a while anyway. I walked a good 2 or 3 miles as the sun settleddown in the west. Some crazy over-passionate Italian opera filled myears from the local public radio station as I mounted a long, steadyslope of a hill thorough low shrubs and oak and hickory and hemlock andfir. And it was during the opera as I half danced up the trail,forgetting my sprain and feeling good again that I thought of the dateand did the math and realized how far I'd come. I crested a hill androunded a corner where there sat a lovely cleared flat spot to sleep. I dropped my pack and walked around, surveying my night's home. Several little toads hopped about in the leaves beneath my feet. Iwalked over and sat on a nice mossy green cushion at the foot of atree, cooked up a batch of dehydrated lasagna homemade by river angelMike and man was that good! I laid out my army poncho ground cloth,and using my trekking poles, erected a tiny lean-to rain shelter usingonly the sil-nylon rain fly from that dastardly hammock I so hated andthus sent home, threw down my bag and Thinsulate air mattress andvoila! I was home. Then I sat down and wrote these words. ¢RSMPennsylvania-Maryland BorderJune 26, 04Called a West Virginia cousin that I haven't seen in 14 years from thepayphone at Penn-Mar Park, a little patch of grass and picnic tablesmarking the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania. Despite the bestintensions, I intuited the moment Sharon answered that it would be aweird conversation. Too much distance, and I never was very close withanyone on my mother's side of the family. But I remembered her asbeing kind of cool, a little older than me so looked-up to in a way andpretty with her long blonde hair. She had no idea who I was. It took me about a minute to explain. "Beth's son," I said. "Beth who?" I rattled off my mother (heraunt)'s various names from the original Moser to McKinney to hercurrent Palermo. And my name, Rick. When we finally got through allthat, I explained what occasioned this call out of the blue, that I washiking the AT. As soon as she heard the words Appalachian Trail, shesaid, "Oh my brother Rick did that a few years ago." Really? I was stunned. I had never heard about it. Even as distantas our families are, surely I would have heard of a cousin completingthe whole trail. "So, you taking a week or so to do that?" she asked. Suddenly I wondered just how much of the trail cousin Rick had done. When my estranged cousin Sharon found out I was doing the trail alone,she was beside herself. "You know, people get murdered on that traila lot, just so you know." Uhuh. We chatted a bit more and as the seconds ticked by I could feel myinterest waning exponentially fast in this awkward reach into the past.Then she let it rip. "So is this a mid-life crisis thing for you? That's what it was for Rick. All you guy's do something like that." Ihad no idea what to say to that.   It had always seemed to me that midlife crisis' were for guys on thecorporate, family path who at 50 or so found themselves missing thefreedoms of their youth. I wanted to tell the blood stranger on theother end of the line that this was just another adventure for me inone long string of adventures called Life. But I said nothing. Whybother. I could hear Mickey Rourke as Bukowski in "Barfly" saying "There's noreality here!" And indeed, there wasn't a pebble-sized piece of commonground from which to speak anymore. In Sharon's words I heard hermother's voice. I had never much liked her mother. In her odd,pessimistic summations of my journey, I heard traces of all my maternalaunts, all much older than my mother and condescending to her and herchildren. I was suddenly ten again, a tiny boy Cinderella with three evilstep-sister aunts, and proudly showing one of them my pet gerbil andher one-upping me about her pet squirrel that was "much more special"(as though an adult ever need one-up a child).   I said "Goodbye, Sharon," and she said "Goodbye, Scott." I hung up the payphone and shook my head, dizzy with the borders andvast empty spaces of humankind.-RSMFor the full story of Rick's journey, visit Jigglebox.com