Date: 2003-08-10
From: Rausch Gap Shelter

To: 501 Shelter
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: moderate rain

I remember learning from Dr. Sherman Nagel in Anatomy class at Pacific Union College eight years ago that the olfactory nerve, or sense of smell, is the quickest to adapt, meaning we should get used to odors quickly and not notice them as much. Judging by how much the acrid odor of Buttercup¢s socks bothered me last night, mine must be malfunctioning. I always sleep with my head at the open side of the shelter, but last night I had to turn around so I wasn¢t smelling those socks anymore. (Then I had her pack by my head instead¢¦which smelled almost as bad!) I don¢t know how she slept with those socks right by her head!I was not a happy hiker as I put my pack on to a fresh round of raindrops. With a heavy sigh, I bid goodbye to the others, reminded myself it¢s never as bad in the rain as you expect it to be, and stepped out into it.I walked for awhile rather glum, and for some reason I remembered my friend Melinda in Oklahoma. I could just hear her saying in her thick Oklahoma twang, ¢Now Emily, just suck it up and keep walkin¢.¢So I did.Five hours later I was at William Penn Shelter, where I filled up on water, and intended to go in for a lunch break. Instead, noting I only had 4.2 miles to go, I kept on and got here to 501 at 2:30pm in good spirits. 17.4 miles in seven hours! A mere morning jaunt. I considered pressing on to find out if the hostel nine more miles up the Trail was open or not ¢ I¢d heard rumors it was not. Or even pressing on to the next shelter, 16 or so from here.Ah, but I took a ¢shower¢ (to use the term loosely) in the spigot (I couldn¢t get the real ¢shower¢ to work, a garden hose with a spray nozzle inside a wooden stall; it¢s hot when it¢s been sunny enough¢¦which it has not been lately!). Then I ate lunch and got too comfortable to go on. Besides I thought maybe Toby would catch me today¢¦Three SOBOs straggled in, then Buttercup on her way to town with another SOBO I¢d passed earlier in the day (not sure how that one worked, but I¢m sure the details will come out later), and just now a man, young daughter, and their dog. It¢s 6pm.The SOBOs have gotten me excited again about doing New England ¢ Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. Matt has wanted to join me again in September; he¢d like those places, too. I just got this funny feeling as these guys were sitting at the table eating dinner and I¢m on my bunk doctoring blisters and generally inspecting my feet. Is this really me, here, on this great adventure?Just before I reached Pa. 501 and the shelter, I passed two families. The first, a father and mother and two young children, stopped to ask where I¢d come from. Actually the father started the conversation by asking, ¢Are you camping? Backpacking?¢ I fear I gave him sort of a blank stare before I answered politely, ¢Yes,¢ trying not to make him feel stupid for the obvious question. I forgave him when he responded enthusiastically to my having started in Georgia, exclaiming how incredible that was, yadda, yadda, yadda. The father of the second family, with his wife and teenage son, asked me how far the Trail went. ¢We¢ve never hiked this before¢¦¢ I answered, ¢It goes to Georgia.¢ His astonishment was subtly visible. ¢Straight through, with no interruption?¢ I nodded. ¢Well, that¢s a little farther than we intended to go today¢¦ Where did you start?¢ ¢Georgia,¢ I replied, then added, ¢Not today.¢ He laughed.Both these encounters, along with the SOBOs here at the shelter, served to restore my enthusiasm for my adventure. Even though no photos were taken today, it reminded me of those ¢tourist attraction¢ moments in the Smokys!I picked up an awesome book yesterday at Rausch Gap, Travels by Michael Crichton, about the extensive trips he¢s taken around the world. What a dream life! Exactly what I¢d like to do ¢ be able to explore all those remote, almost-unheard-of places at the ends of the earth! His stories remind me of all there is to see, to experience, and I feel as though I can¢t possibly gobble life up fast enough. In addition, he¢s very reflective and insightful ¢ just my type of reading. One chapter describes his climb of Kilimanjaro ¢ which, you remember, is another dream of mine. He says, ¢What I learned was this: that I had defined myself as a person who didn¢t like heights or cold, a person who didn¢t like to be dirty, a person who didn¢t like physical exertion or discomfort. And here I had spent five days cold, dirty, and exhausted¢¦and I had had a wonderful experience.¢I realized then that I had defined myself too narrowly¢¦¢Second, although I am tall, I had always secretly defined myself as a physically weak and somewhat sickly person. After climbing Kilimanjaro, I had to acknowledge that I was mentally and physically tough. I was forced to redefine myself. Climbing the mountain was the hardest thing I had ever done, physically, in my life, but I had done it.¢I am tough, aren¢t I? I am determined. I¢m stubborn. I¢m strong-willed. I¢m disciplined. I¢m going to make it.