Date: 2002-09-09
From: Maine

To: GA
Miles today: 10.0

Monday September 9, 20027amI slept in the shelter last night and I did not sleep well. I guess it just isn¢t me, I like to be in my tent. But about 4:30 I finally got about a good 1 and half hours of sleep. I am gonna walk into Glencliff and get my maildrop and if I can¢t do my laundry then I will head on down the trail. It¢s a nice sunny morning. Lots of pine cones dropping. And sometimes I am walking along and if one hits me in the head, I think, what the heck? I am walking along here in this beautiful pine tree forest, it so quiet and peaceful. New Hampshire is a beautiful state; I can see why people are proud to live here. They are very friendly here. Just met !garlicman he is at hikers welcome hostel and met !seattle from Wisconsin, Just kiddin. Met Juicy shoes and !shamrock from Massachusets. !shamrock is giving me some information about Hanover. Got my Maildrop and mailed off 2 tapes to Pam today. They are all ready to play. I have my pack Packed with food and it¢s 9 and I am ready to leave. Nice little town and looks like about Owasa as far as the population.   Old Post office boxes. Most business is thruhikers and they have a back room just full of boxes for thruhikers. Day 34 for me on the trail. Talk to my wife Mary today for a few minutes, that was nice. Hadn¢t talk to her for week and was glad she went to Dubuque and had a good time for the weekend. Had some mosquito¢s today but hadn¢t had many before now. I still have a few hills to go through but nothing like the first week. I have run into some really really nice northbounders now. Maybe because before the whites they were really condescending by saying all the time, your in for this and your in for that. Kind of like you don¢t know what your in for. So now its nice now when I meet a north bounder and they don¢t have so much advice to give out freely or on how to deal with the trail. I hope I don¢t get that way as I go south. But like I said that is just the minority but the majority have been very helpful and friendly. I noticed that the northbounders at Glencliff just taking their time taking off and the south bounders are ready to take off.   Probably because the southbounders figure they need to beat the cold in the smokies. Another thing them northbounders have their legs they really cook when they hit the trail and like me, I am still a little tentative, I suppose that will change. Kevin the other south bounder I have been leap frogging with the last few days and saw him in Glencliff and they stayed overnight there and now he is about mile on the trail and now he has passed me and he doesn¢t use sticks but man he really goes with his straw hat on. I think Kevin¢s trail name should be Speedy Gonzales or Roadrunner because when he goes by me, the wind when he goes by me almost blows me right off the trail.   Met Little Bo Peep and Uncle Jesse and both north bounders, they are both from Knoxville, Tennessee. Oh they got their names from the dukes of hazard and he carries a guitar with him. Nice looking couple and I can¢t believe he carries that guitar with him on the trail. Just reached summit of Mount Mist, only 2200 elevation¢¦ that¢s a mini mountain compared to what I had been through. Just met a group of kids from Dartmouth College, I believe they were the Dartmouth Outing Club. I have 3 groups of them the last couple of days. Some of them are just out hiking the trail and others are out working the trail. The outfit I saw before was working on privies. Dartmouth is in Hanover. Just met MG he is from Greene, Iowa. His name is steve Vickers and you see very few people from Iowa out here, don¢t know if they know how to walk. Ha, ha.   Met Jail from San Diego, Ca, he is long way from home too. Met Addison from Bristol, Vermont. Met Voodoo Chow from GA. These 4 guys were trying to get a ride into town on the road but a van stopped and he said he would take all them together but they couldn¢t¢ take their packs. So they are scrambling around the woods stashing and hiding their packs. Then they are gonna ride into town and the guy is gonna bring them back out. If he had more room I probably would have gone too. Just to have chocolate malt or something. Sure was good to see somebody from Iowa, he is on the website too MG. So maybe it is steve He said after it was over with maybe next spring we could get together and talk about it. He spent the last 7 years going to school down in Florida; his dad is an attorney in Greene, Iowa. Funny how things work on the trail. A few days ago some guy told me there was someone else from Iowa on the trail coming north bound and then here he is standing next to me trying to hitch a ride into town. I just so happen to come along just before they got a ride. Otherwise I would have missed him. Ran into and met The Cream Team, I Joked with them that it must be about cremation. They all laughed.   From Virginia. I met them at the Oreo Shelter when I stopped in for break and I told them they should do Ragbrai next summer. Because they said they just loved biking. Was thinking this afternoon about Donny and how I need to really get that picture; we have been working on that for the last 2 years. When I get home I am going to actually work hard on that to get that done. I was thinking that I didn¢t include him when I was talking about what I learned from my kids even though he only live 4 months. He taught me that life is damn short. He also taught me about unconditional love and how to work through pain. He did have pain, he would cry about it, he had colic and sometimes he would just smile though the pain. I can still see that smile. You know what, it doesn¢t make any difference if you had your kids for 50 years or 1 day the love that you have is just the same and the loss that you feel is just as great if its just one day or if it¢s 50 years. You can ask anyone that has lost a child and at any age and they will tell you the same thing.   The Cream Girls and then 4 of their companions have been on the trail sort of together told me they have been planning on training to do a marathon. I told them I had done some and some triathlons.   Some are interested in doing some triathlons and one of the cream girls wanted to learn to swim better so she could do some triathlons and 1 of them had done a couple of small ones. They are going to go into training and do a marathon in New Orleans, LA. Next spring all 6 of them.   I need to looking for a stream here I carry a 2 liter Platypus for my water. It has hose on it and I hook it to my sternum strap and then I can just stick it in my mouth when I get thirsty. I have a one liter bottle in my side pocket and 2 pint size bottles in my pack, one for sponge bath and the other one has a built in filter and I can dip it into any stream and drink out of it. So I came across the road and here sits a gallon of water, plus a big 4 liter platypus bag, full of water. It was each to own. Some trail person or someone that likes hikers put it there to use. Talk about trail magic. That was it, it was like an oasis. So I just helped myself. Met north bounder from Georgia name was Davey Crockett. I met another named Mary Poppins and so it is Betty Crockett instead of Davey because this guy named him that because he was cooking up a storm. Ha, that was funny.   Best Powder was the one that gave Betty Crockett his new name. Met Red and she was from Australia.   Met Dexter from New York headed north and Salty Dog from North Carolina. Tortuga a lady from Atlanta, GA. Just met a fellow and his name was John Adams, that is his trail name. Ran into Glider and ran into BLUEBERRY lady. This was the gal that the couple I met about 5 days ago and it was her friend. And thought I might run into her. I wasn¢t going to ask her anything because she as coming down and was going up and I ask her what her name was anyway and sure enough it was Blueberry and I told her and she said she had just gotten an email from Nancy and said look for Pa Kettle. We didn¢t talk for very long but it was kind of funny to run into her. Right now I am looking for a campsite.   I was going to stop at that shelter and there was no water, so had to go on. So now I am going to find flat spot on the mountain and I found a spot right on top of a flat rock. I pitched my tent and should be cooler before going back down this mountain. I am gonna cook some supper and I got plenty of water now. I have a bee that is pestering me and I am letting him go for now but I might have to whoop him if he doesn¢t fly on. I have got to get to a Laundromat because these shorts are going to stand up by themselves. But Hanover is the closest one and that is a few days away. Started pitching my tent about 6:30 and that is a bit late but it¢s not dark yet. Fixing supper, having ramen noodles, put mashed potatoes in it and hot cocoa and pop tarts. Maybe I will have a candy bar for desert or for late night snack. Listen to NPR for awhile and then that will be it. The higher altitudes it takes a little more fuel to boil the water. Nice sunset tonight. Not really out in the clear, I am almost to the top of the mountain, but it¢s not above tree line and I can see the sunset through the trees and the wind isn¢t blowing hard tonight. It¢s kind of peaceful and quiet up here. All I can here is the animals rustling around and making noises. I am sitting here missing Mary and drinking cup of Hot Chocolate and wishing she were sitting right were beside me drinking a cup of chocolate with me. Made almost 15 miles today. That makes almost 415 miles so far on the hike I have done so far. I need to report that. I am looking out my tent window at the stars and it¢s amazing, they feel like they are right here. No light pollution and it reminds me when I was a kid in Owasa and they used to turn the streetlights out at 10. I remember Ed Brandon used to go up to city hall and I believe it was a locked thing, he would unlock it and flip the switch and turn the lights off at 10. Sometimes on the weekends when we were allowed to stay up late we would lay out flat on the ground and look up at the stars and you could feel the earth moving away from the stars.   IT feels the same way here.