Date: 2006-03-26
From: Standing Bear Farm

To: Standing Bear Farm
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

I'll be doing zero mile days for a while but I won't think of them as zero days. Recovering from injury is different.First day of work for stay kept me busy. Curtis is not the taskmaster type. If there are no specific projects his instructions are, "Look around. If you see something that needs doing, do it." The place is a collection of outbuildings. It's like a flop house for hikers. They come in, congregate, relax by the wood stove, wash filthy clothes, and chow on frozen pizza from the resupply shed. Then they leave. When you're a accustomed to wearing the same clothes, being unwashed, and sleeping on the ground, Standing Bear Farm is the place you need. It's cheap, utilitarian and relatively free of civilized niceties. It's also a mess.What I saw that needed doing was some serious sweeping and laundry. The kitchen needed special attention. Floors, towels, sheets from the beds that have sheets. In the outdoor kitchen, boiling the silverware and utensils, dumping trash, cleaning shelves, scouring sink and counter. Funny, I've lost track of many sanitary rules on the trail as everyone does but want people to be in a clean place here. I told Minnesota Smith about sweeping up some mouse turds. He's a scientist in real life, but here he wondered what I was worrying about. We sleep in mouse infested shelters every night. Mice and humans have coexisted throughout time.Made some phone calls. Talked to Scott for the first time in a month. Filled him in on details. Nice to talk to someone from home who really gets what I'm doing and completely relates to the details. I also talked to Hope. Even though she had lots of questions, she said she just didn't get it. The weather, the grime, the acceptance of misery, the monotony. I told her the hostel is the kind of place that would make her run screaming. I just realized, I heard Elle in the background and never asked to talk to her. I have a postcard ready for her here by my bed.Got some great advice from Smokin Jeff. He's the hiker by trade who works here when not on trail. He knows all 800 miles of trails in the Smokies and everything about hiking in general. I told him I needed to get to an outfitter and had to have a new pack before I put foot back on the trail. He didn't believe me and insisted I was just packing wrong. I insisted that i had tried every type of adjustment and was stil always in pain. Partly to try anything for relief and partly to humor Jeff, I dumped all my gear on the bunkhouse porch for a lesson in packing. Jeff's a genious. I've been packing and carrying my gear all wrong from day one. I'll carry the adjusted pack around here for a few days, but I think the major problems are solved. I told him he may have saved my hike.Now as far as saving my hike, I'm worried more about my shin splints. Underground has doubts that a week of rest will be effective. A month would be better. I'm not going to stay at a hostel in a tiny Tennessee town and watch hikers come and go and leave me behind everyday while I lose all of my trail conditioning. But that's what I might have to do. I need to save my hike. We all talk about our hikes like they are prized personal possessions and they are, and I'm not throwing mine away.