Date: 2005-01-13
To: Ear Plugs and such
Miles today: 0.0

I can¢t wait to meet my new best friend in person. We met through Trailjournals.com and hit it off right away. It seems we share the same departure date, as well as the multitude of phobias spawned by this insane concept of hiking for 2,174 miles. Her name is Mothergoose,and she is hiking in part for the memory of her grandmother who died last year. In fact, she¢s using her hike as a fund raiser for the American Liver Foundation. (Nice cover, MG. Why didn¢t I think of that¢¦.)While her trail name is kinda cute and fairy-taleish, don¢t get the wrong idea. She picked it up in an earlier incarnation, being the only female rider in a biker gang. (¢What¢s that, Mothergoose? Oh, right¢¦correction: Motorcycle Club.¢) Anyway, we¢ve been exchanging emails fairly regularly for the past couple of weeks, sharing our packing lists and asking each other what we¢re doing about this or that. A couple of days ago, I asked her if she had remembered to pack ear plugs, and she wrote back asking me why she would need those. She also said she was considering taking Kleenex packages instead of toilet paper rolls, and what did I think about that idea. Below is my reply.Good morning to you, MG!         It really brightens my day to hear from you. By all means let's get our respective mates in touch so that they can commiserate. Maybe they could form a support group support group. (This isn¢t getting out of hand, is it?)         Why the ear plugs? Snoring, mostly. If you read trail journals, it's inevitable that you'll come across references to some (usually old, always male) hiker who snores like a chainsaw (which, by the way, is how at least one of the "Chainsaw's" got their trail name), and keeps everyone else in the shelter awake all night.         I have to be honest here. That's me. At the moment, anyway. I never hear me, of course, as I personally sleep quite soundly, thank you very much. But I have it on good authority that I snore VERY LOUDLY. A LOT. And it's not just She-who-knows-me-best-but-still-loves-me who says it's true. My kids, the guys who run with me on the Sunday night crew at Sterling Rescue, the Scout leaders who I tent near at camp outs, ... the list goes on. Frankly, it's gotten to the point where I've decided I HAVE to do something about it, and my hike is actually what has brought the matter to a head. I understand that we'll all have to stay in shelters in the Smoky Mountains National Park due to the bear issue and at least the older shelters all have bear fences across the front. I really don't want to embarrass myself, or keep my fellow pilgrims awake all night. The rest of the time I expect to be sleeping in my tent, but I'm sure there will be occasions when I may want to sleep in a shelter. And even if I tent, I can't afford to be too close to the shelter since, as a super-light model, it¢s almost all mesh, and the rain fly doesn¢t exactly provide sound-proof insulation!           So there's the problem. Just last week I finally managed to get into a sleep center for an overnight evaluation. The results aren't back yet, but unless their equipment was busted, I suspect they will confirm what EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD ALREADY KNOWS. I snore. But apparently I have to have that diagnostic done so that I can get the treatment done. That¢s scheduled for January 27. It will involve a couple of things that I won't go into here, but one is a very new treatment that includes the insertion of three small "pillars" into the soft palate of my upper mouth. Those are supposed to strengthen the palate and prevent it from coming down and vibrating like crazy as I inhale -- the source of the alleged (OK, OK, it's MORE than an allegation) snoring.         However: (a) it may not work, and (b) even if it does, I won't be the only one out there who snores. I gather there are other times when ear plugs may be useful. Liteshoe's journal refers to a night when someone slept in one of those silvery emergency sleeping bag thingies and it crinkled and crankled every time he rolled over -- all night long. ¢Another night's sleep lost,¢ she wrote. You see what I mean? She wrote him up! It¢s right there in her journal for the whole world to read. She didn¢t use his name, but she could have. So I¢m going to try to have my snoring problem fixed before I go. The last thing I want is to have more pages written about me in other hikers¢ journals than what I can produce ¢ and all of it about some old guy whose trail name was Longhaul who snored so loudly even the mice had to leave the shelter. No way!   Toilet paper rolls or Kleenex packages? Ya see! THAT¢S what I like about the trail. I have to spend my entire day at the office dealing with such mundane things as how to save the world's poor from starvation, when these really important issues in the hiking community remain UNRESOLVED. I can't WAIT to get out there into the woods and start taking on the REAL issues of life. Ok, let me try that question again. Actually, MG, it's getting kind of scary. I'm driving into work today, stuck in rush hour traffic, and my mind is running over all the things I've got to get together for my hike. Then I remember something I had thought of this past weekend, but had forgotten to write down at the time. My mind isn't so good anymore, so I have to write a lot of stuff down. Anyway, I had done an email to the at-l list about where I am with my hike planning, and ended with the thought that I needed to tell the kids to start saving the last quarter of the TP roll for my hike. One of the email responses I got advised me to TAKE THE WHOLE ROLL. "You'll feel like royalty out there!" Fine for her to say. She hasn't seen the size of that pile of stuff in the corner that I already know isn't going to fit into my poor little pack, and she's suggesting I add a WHOLE ROLL OF TOILET PAPER??? Let's get REAL here, folks.   So anyway, I pretty much rejected that bit of advice, but then I thought, wait. You know those little Kleenex packages? Maybe that's what I should use. So, in the car driving in this morning, that's what I wrote down. And I get to the office, open up your email, and what's the issue of the day??? Scary, huh? Forget the support group for our hubbies, we're the ones who need help. Stay tuned!