Date: 2004-05-19
From: Punchbowl Shelter

To: Buena Vista, VA
Miles today: 10.9

The day starts out like any other.    Wake up. Eat breakfast. Pack up. Start hiking.   And for a while, it continues just as any other. I'm actually not feeling so bad. I may have shaken whatever bug it was that I had.    At least, that's how the day starts off.   By noon, I am once again hiking slow frequently breaking to help settle my stomach.    It's gonna be another bad day.   Looking at my data book, I see that the nearest shelter is Brown Mountain Creek Shelter, only 9.1 miles from where I started my day. That's where I will end up. This pain can't last forever...and I AM finishing this damn trail..even if I have to creep along at 9.1 miles a day all the way to the end.   Of course, the breaking of one's spirit takes time. Whether it be months, days, or hours...it's much harder to keep your spirit up when things not only don't get easier, but often times get more difficult. And as the day went on and my stomach got worse, and running into the woods became more and more annoying, reality sunk in. It sucks to be sick, but to be sick in the middle of the woods with no bed to lie in, no toilet to sit on, and no other creature comforts to make your presently miserable existence a bit more bearable is infinitely worse.   I had to get out of these woods.   Just before Pedlar Dam I ran into Katie and Clyde, who were slackpacking this section southbound while their male counterparts, Kent and Bonnie, were slackpacking north. They were all at Punchbowl Shelter last night and knew of my condition. I told them that not much had changed and that I would probably be hitchhiking the hell out of here as soon as I got to a road (tomorrow morning, according to my plans) and spending the day in a motel dividing my time between the bed and the bathroom.    "Do you think it's Giardia?"   Giardia.   The idea had entered my mind at some point yesterday, but I didn't want to believe that was the case. But what if it was? What if I caught the infamous parasitic protozoa responsible for the end of many thru-hikes before mine?   If I felt up to it and could pull off the extra 1.8 miles to the road today, they would pick me up at 6:00 and give me a ride to the nearest town, Buena Vista. If I couldn't make it and decided to stop at the shelter, they would at least leave me some Immodium AD in a plastic bag, taped behind a sign at the road crossing. I thanked them and moved on.   Camel and Patrick finally catch up to me at a Forest Service road and I wonder how the hell it could've taken them this long. Turns out they took a wrong turn out of the shelter and started hiking back to Georgia. Luckily they realized their mistake after only a mile and a half. They can see I'm not doing well and I tell them my escape plan. Patrick just happens to carry Immodium AD and, before hiking off into the woods again, he gives me a few telling me to take one now and take another the next time I have a diarrheic attack.    "After popping two of those things, you won't sh*t for two days!"   Sounds good to me.   By the time I have hiked to the shelter, I have already decided that I would be moving on. Lots of love has been left for me in the shelter register, wishing me well.    'To the one true G-Man,' writes Camel, referring to the possibility of me having Giardia. I smile and take time to reflect on some memories I'd made with them in just the last couple of weeks. I have no way of knowing how long it will be before I see my friends again.   I arrive at the road crossing well before 6:00. No point in just sitting there waiting while a three-ring circus performs in my bowels. I start to reach into my pack to get the knife my friend Trevor gave me to wear around my neck for protection. I no longer keep it around my neck while hiking for comfort's sake, but would rather have it there when hitchhiking alone. Before I can find it, I hear an approaching vehicle. My thumb goes out, and the car immediately stops.    Less than one minute by the side of the road. Fastest hitch ever.   The driver patiently waits as I scribble a note to Katie and Clyde telling them I've already found a ride to town. I don't bother with the knife, figuring that the driver would see me grabbing it and putting it around my neck anyway, eliminating the element of surprise were the guy to be a psycho.   Of course he was no psycho and when he found out I was sick and dropped me off at the motel, he also left his card with me in case I needed anything else.   Turns out there are more good apples out there than bad.   I check in, find my room, give the bathroom a good test run, and collapse into bed. I don't see myself getting back on the trail tomorrow. I can't just stay at a motel for a week. I really should go to the hospital just in case it IS the "G." All these thoughts flow through my mind.   I pick up the phone.   "Hello?"   Joy, it's Leki.   "Leki! How're you doing??"   Not good.   "Why what's wrong?"   Joy, how far do you live from Buena Vista?   After laughing at my pronounciation, reminding me that here in the south a town spelled like that would be called bee-YOO-na vista instead of BWEN-na vista, she told me that she lived a little over an hour away. I hated to ask, but I hoped that she knew this was something I would do for her in a heartbeat if the roles were reversed. After telling her I was sick and staying at a motel cause I had to get out of the woods, I wasn't the one doing the asking.   "Do you want to stay with me and my family for a couple of days until you get better?"   Joy, I would love that.   She and Bloody Cactus would be picking me up tomorrow morning. I thanked her, hung up the phone, went back to the bathroom, left the room to put in some laundry, got some food, took my laundry out, went back to the room and used the bathroom, turned on the TV to catch the end of South Park, and finally called home. I wasn't on the phone long before telling my mother that I had to run. I would have to call her back in 10 minutes   I called her back almost 40 minutes later.