Date: 2006-01-15
To: buena vista
Miles today: 0.0

Surfing around for weather informations I discovered some webcams showing current conditions near the trail. Accidentaly I just came accross the ones on the GSMNP website to see the dawn giving birth to a new day. What a picture! As I returned a couple of minutes later the Smokeys showed me their whole glory as you can see in the adjacent picture. (I almost put my footh in my mouth again in terms of linguistic. The originial title for this entry was "morning glory" as I just in time found out, that this could easily be misinterpreted.) Looking at this picture my feet are itching even more. (Although this also could stem from full moon or a developing case of athlete's foot ).Looking at my last entries I found them pretty long-winded. But don't be bothered as this will level out as soon as I hit the trail. Aside from having difficulties to hit the small keys of my pocketmail device with almost frozen fingers I probably will be too tired in the evening to indulge in excessive typing. Moreover I will have to limit my daily entries to 6000 characters as I remember to have read this is the maximum you can use for one email. My transcriber will be deeply grateful for not having to piece countless emails together for making only one entry. To those of you who think this is good news: I'm not on the trail yet. So the next few entries have no other restrictions than the endless time I need for translating my thoughts into English and typing them into my keybord. (When the Lord gave me ten fingers he clearly hadn't in mind I should use them for typing, otherwise I wouldn't have to use the SAS-sytem. In case you never heard this abbreviation: it means "search and strike", simply because my index fingers are gyrating over my keybord like an eagle before I let them hit the - often wrong - pr(k)ey.)Just a word to the folks out there reading my journal, signing my guestbook, or sending me emails: Let me express my sincerest thanks (even if this should sound a bit oldfashioned). I deeply appreciate your interest and your encouraging comments. It's an additional motivation to see so many totaly unknown people taking interest in my hike. And even though I won't hike this trail to please others I feel it as a stronger obligation not to flake out if I know there are people out watching me. As someone put it: You can either tell nobody about your hike, what makes it easy to quit it on the quiet. Or you tell the whole world, knowing you won't have a chance to steal away.Let me address some questions people asked me. Although I answered some entries in my guestbook by editing them I doubt that people will read their entries once again. 1) Regarding my restricted timetable: As a european hiker there are two ways getting to the US. You can apply for a visa which allows you to stay the needed amount of time (how long this is depends on the reasons for your stay and lies within the discretion of the Immigration Officer at your point of entry. This means although your visa is valid for 9 months the officer has every right to change this if he deems necessary). The application has to be filled long in advance, costs quite a few bucks and you have to go for an interwiev with the consular folks in Frankfort (250 miles from my home, one way). I was simply to late with applying for a visa and taking the risk to buy a ticket without knowing if the visa will be granted in good time was not acceptable.If your country qualifies for the Visa Waiver programm, which mine does, you don't have to apply for a visa. However this limits the time for your stay to 90 days. I possibly could overstay this period without having the FBI on my heels but at least there would be trouble when I leave. Altough they would not send me to Guantanamo, they could deny my next entry over a certain period. This is a risk I won't take as I probably have to come back to finish the remaining miles of the trail.So I will have to use my time and this means doing everthing a litter faster than most people deem appropriate. But to quote Laotse: "Slow or fast, the path will be the same." (Really useful this old Chinese philosophers. Always a sound bite to use in either way.)2) Regarding the suggestion to change my trailname into "Die Nutten Kasse" to personalize it a bit. (I simply copy and paste my answer.)Harley,Even as I'm always open for suggestions I'm afraid I can't follow you on this one. Translated into German it would read "The hooker cash box". I'm in serious doubt this would represent a proper personalization as the only hooker I ever had to do with was Johny Lee Hooker, one of my favourite blues singers. (Admittedly there's a lot of "boom boom boom" and "bang bang bang" in his lyrics, but I assure you I'm copletely innocent at it.)As you are from Priceton perhaps this is an Ivy League insider joke. Since I dropped out after elementary school I hope you don't mind me saying this is too sophisticated for poor little me. Nuts PS: Oh, sorry, I did you wrong. This was Princeton, FL. Don't blame me for this, I'm an alien! ;-) Very special thanks to Judy and Paula who shouldered to initiate me into the secrets of hiker junk food. Because of their detailed description of rahmen noodles I could remember to have eaten them before. They are sold under a different brand name here and in less variations, but basically they are the same. Ladys, I'm eagerly awaiting my 101 course to be continued.When it comes to food I almost feel guilty reading in so many journals that people preparing their meals at home, either buying their food in advance, or even dehydrating all kinds of healthy and tasty stuff to send it to their maildrops. People talking about nutritional details, protein content, fat-to-carb ratio and vitamin supplementals. I have to admit I thought about none of it. Besides beeing a bit complicated to convince the customs officer that those 120 lbs dehydrated zucchini, 60 packs of various sealed outdoor dinners and the 30 boxes of vitamin pills are essential for successfully complete my hike I simply would have not the patience to accumulate this kind of stuff. This would involve extended shopping which as you know I'm highly allergic against. So I will take a completely different approach and simply stuff my face with everything remotely looking like food (although you may rest assured I will remove the packing beforehand) hoping not to develope serious deficiency symptoms. The only thing which could cause a grave breakdown and easily lead to severe dehydration from drooling is to smell the alluring odour of rehydrated Filet de Mignion with French beans and boiled potatos heated over a fellow hikers homemade pepsi can stove. The only way to escape such unfair attack on my salvatory glands will be to make camp at least 500 yards away from the next shelter devoutely hoping the wind won't change direction.Nuts