Date: 2003-06-03
From: Harpers Ferry

To: Harpers Ferry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: mist

Nancy (Catbert) presented me with a bowl of fresh raspberries. What a way to start the day! Catbert is an organic gardener, it's her offtime passion, and her yard back in Pinehurst is a floral, vegetable and fruiting paradise.Catbert drove Turnaround and me to the post office, where I collected a boatload of packages, to be opened later. Turnaround had to help me carry them to the trunk.Then Catbert stuffed me, Itchy Foot, Notes, Just Do It and Turnaround into her four-door Toyota and took us to the Wishing Well for a hearty thru-hikers breakfast of pancakes, sausage, eggs, OJ and coffee. Then Walmart where Itchy Feet got a haircut and we resupplied our food bags.Then to the Appalachian Trail Conference office. Harpers Ferry is the national headquarters. This group oversees the AT. Almost before I got in the door, administrator Laurie Pottienger collared me for an afternoon demonstration for inner city grade school kids.I got the traditional picture taken right after Mule, but before Notes and Papparazzi. I was number 198 to go through the ATC offices this year.Back at the hotel, Catbert and Treadmill headed out for some town hiking. I stole a nap, then set about opening my packages. Trail magic galore!! My heart was warmed, and I felt tears prick my eyes. Suddenly, I was so homesick!! Gratitude and thanks:First, my LongTrail partner Clyde sent me some lightweight white photon lights to use while night hiking or privy hunting. Guess he didn't want me to run broadside into that so-called moose.Then my AT-L hiking list buddies KellyGoVols and the irrepressible Jerry sent a huge sticker-covered package. Inside were MountainHouse Trail Meals, six packs of bacon (yum!!), a pack of chicken ramen ("just kidding, LOL" read the note), six little bottles of liqueurs like Godiva, Bacardi Limon rum and Kahlua, and a great book, one I've been wanting to read - Sue Monk Kidd's "Secret Life of Bees." Thank you, guys!Beth Daum and Debby Sherman, thank you, and you know why.Vicki Kiser sent me pictures of Fudgie, a horse I bred, foaled, raised and trained. He looked splendid. Fudgie owns Vicki now. And then, being a woman and understanding the importance of these things, Vicki included an abundance of that all-important food group: chocolate. My final package really brought the tears down. My landlady Dottie sent me a note and a handful of pictures of Rocket (my cat) and Pogo (my scruffy little Benji dog). In the pictures, Pogo was just hanging out, batting her brown button eyes. Someone had hung a bandanna on her. Rocket the cat is a macho thing, and was captured in the act of "training the puppies." Ha! That cat brooks no nonsense from canines, and more than holds his own. God, I missed them!A thousand miles walked and 1,172.6 more to go. Not even halfway yet! How am I going to hang in there another three and a half months? I am really missing Southern Pines. Yet I want to keep walking. How is it possible to want to be in two places at once?About 1 pm, I tossed on my backpack and trundled back down to the ATC offices. Within minutes, in walked a very wet Hotdog and Wench. I had a good time talking to the school group about my hike, and got Hotdog and Fish to chime in about theirs too.I walk back in the - what else - rain. Man! Was I glad to be settling down tonite in a warm, dry bed.Another nap, another snack, some cards and journaling. Then it was supper, and again Catbert good-naturedly crams the lot of us into her small car and trundles us off to the feed trough at King's Pizza, which is now open. Our bellies are now pooched out and, though it is raining buckets outside, we are inside, dry and warm. I am grateful for the company of good friends. It's a good life.