Date: 2005-07-02
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Miles today: 0.0

It's beeen almost 2 years since I've made a journal entry and the first thing I would like to do is give a BIG HELLO to all the people that I met hiking on my 2003 Thru Hike. I'm starting a new journal because I'll be flying back to Pennsylvania on July 15th to meet my old friend and hiking partner from 2003, Beekpr, and to finish his hike from that year. Beekpr had to leave the trail due to a foot injury at the 501 Shelter in Pa. and went back home to New York. At that point I thought that was the end of our hiking experience together and the loss of a good friend, but when I called him from Ft. Montgomery, N.Y. to see how he was doing, he said he was going to meet me in N. Adams, Ma. and finish with me to Katahdin. In fact our timing was so good he met me as he climbed Mt. Graylock from the north side as I was coming down from the summit. He was a big part of my Thru Hike that year and to finish with him just made it more complete. So, here we are almost 2 years later and we're planning on meeting at the 501 Shelter again and finish the approximately 400 miles he missed that year to complete his hike. We have about 6 weeks to hike before our wives pick us up so we figured, if all goes well, we should be able to hike to the Inn at Longtrail outside of Rutland, Vt. where we had a great stay when we hiked through last time. When I finished my Thru Hike I was back to work 10 days later and the shock of reality hits you pretty square in the face. I was a manager in the Post Office and going from being responsible for myself for the past 5 1/2 months to the responsibilities of a 100 employees and the work they do took a bit of getting used to. I'm not sure I ever did. I put a picture almost right away from my hike that Beekpr took of me standing on E. Baldplate Mountain looking towards the north and the line of mountains we still had to cross on my business computer's screen saver, and I would find myself looking at it often and going through in my mind the many experiences I had. I think most of you long distance hikers know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I finally called it quits last year and retired from the P.O. on July 30th and I couldn't have been happier with my decision. It has afforded me time to do what I enjoy most, throwing a backpack on and taking a walk in the woods, what could be better.A day hasn't gone by since I finished on Katahdin that I haven't thought about some aspect of the hike or the people I met hiking that year. I remember reading, before I started, about how hiking the A.T. will have a profound affect on you after the hike, but I didn't take it seriously at the time. I always figured if I could finish the A.T. from end to end I would be able to get that 30 year obsession I had to do it out of my system and put it behind me....boy was I wrong on that one! I guess I figured time would lessen the desire, but I'll tell you, I'm chompng at the bit to get back on the trail again and see that first white blaze. It's hard to explain to peole who thought you were nuts the first time for attempting a Thru Hike to want to go back and even do a portion of it again, but in this community of long distance hikers along with my wife and son no explanations are needed.I'm looking forward to meeting some of the class of 2005 and maybe see some of our old friends as we hike north. See you up the trail!RestSTep, Class of 2003