Date: 2004-07-30
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 1420.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Mile 1420Stone desk in mid-trailI was thinking I should get on my website and jazz up my resume. Putin all the good stuff I've been up to in the past three years. I'dstart with throwing in my stint in Kaseman Psychiatric. It was lessthan a week, but we could beef it up, call it a month. Say I got anhonorary degree in "How Deep is Your Love" since that seems to havebeen the straw that broke my love's back. Next I'd put up there how I spent three months in a little-knownjob training program called "Drunken Float Decoration" or "How todecorate Mardi Gras floats with one hand and drink with the other." I'd have to post my training at automotive engine nursing andreplacement, having replaced the engine in my art car three times inrecent years. Then we could write up "Crooked Cabin Up-righting" from when I liftedthat cabin in Maine up off its slanty hill home and put in on newfoundation blocks, such that the front door went from being at ankleheight to well above my hips when I was done. From that same summer, Icould put "Dental Extraction" down there from when I pulled out my owntooth with the aid of tequila, a 12-pack of Maine's Sarnac beer, andpliers. "Pyromaniac" deserves to go on the resume after manning the propane gunon the whale at Burning Man two years running.I've had a recent revelation!It concerns pack weight. After a comfy night at the Friary near BearMountain, I was "slackpacked" by a trail angel named Gene who went onahead 19 miles and took Nitro, Michael & I's packs ahead for us. Myrecent insane foot pain and ankle sketchiness disappeared as I soaredover the 19 miles of trail at better than 3 miles per hour. "That'sit!" I decided. "I'm tossing my pack and everything in it but mysleeping bag! No more fuel, no more stove, no more hot meals, no morefirst aid kit, no more too-much food and I'll lose the pack, too, if Ican and go with a mesh laundry sack or something. I'm dying from theweight, even though mine is a relatively light pack. [I consequentlydid this very thing, mailing off a full 8 pounds of lord-knows-what butopting out of the mesh sack as it looked lame and kept the pack. Theresult: I did move faster, felt better. In fact I roared across NY,NJ, CN & MA. But I quickly reclaimed my Thinsulite pad, as the groundand/or floors of shelters was just too damn hard w/o it. Then in theBerkshires of MA, I began to freeze my ass off, in August! So soon,we'll be adding back a lot of the weight. I will continue to miss,however, my mp3 player, which was far too heavy with batteries andrecharger to lug to Maine.]Summer sounds come to me through the woods. Sounds of childrenlaughing and playing. I recently came across a dirt road in the woods,such a road usually desolate but today jammed with SUVs goingsomewhere. I'd been hearing sounds of what sounded like a radio in thewoods at first, and then walking on realizing it was bigger, maybe aparade in a nearby town. It was Sunday. Now here were all these carscued up and moving at a snail's pace through the woods. As I crossedtheir path, I asked a driver what was up. "Parent's day at summercamp." Ahh, sweet memories.My day's are full of blueberries now. I eat them from trailside bushesas I walk. Blackberries and raspberries, too. It's nice.What is it about daddy long leg spiders that they run exactly backtoward you when you shoosh them away? I mean exactly! I flick em awayand they retrace their steps perfectly. Weird. I am a mass of bug bites and patches of poison ivy. I itch constantly,but am very Zen about not scratching.The other day I summited Bear Mtn and went looking for the waterfountain promised in my guidebook. The visitor center was closed, aswere the bathrooms and the spigots yielded nada. But heh! Look whatwe have here up on this empty mountain! A Dasani water dispensingmachine!! Just $1.50! I head down the mountain and tap the firstspring I find.Down at Bear Mountain we are fed by mama Rooney, Rooney Tunes' momdriven down from Mass with chicken and deviled eggs and pickles andmacaroni salad. It is a nice treat. Then that night, after the zoo ofbroken-down animals and Walt Whitman and all that, I'm fed a full mealby monks! What a world. Last night at the RPH shelter about 20 miles from the CN state line,nearly a full case of Heineken donated and Ursa Minor is on antibioticsand can't drink and neither Nitro nor Michael drink much, leaving itall to Swan and me. I did my best. Sweating beer today.-RSM