Date: 2012-08-07
From: Fitzgerald Falls, NY

To: Rutland Vt.
Miles today: 0.0

I've not gotten lost, nor quit hiking. But it has been a long and strange journey. There is much to sort through and much to tell and it will come in time. For now, it will have to suffice for me to say that I've completely fallen in love with Vermont....it's mountains, towns, people and of course, it's trails. I've gotten off the trail (yes, again) and have spent the day applying online for jobs and looking for an apartment. I've gone home 3 times to interview and attend to the details of becoming an employed person once a gain. I'm due to start a new job on Monday in Philadelphia and with each day I've hiked since accepting the offer of employment, I've found my heart sinking more. It's just not what I think I should be doing, not the job nor the city for me...not right now. The job is somewhat dangerous, the pay is terrible and I don't really want to live in the city. So....call it some sort of strange trail magic...but I'm totally smitten with Vermont and am hoping to call it my new home in the near future. I can hike more easily and often than I can from New Jersey and my internet research shows that jobs in my field (community mental health) are available. So, please, cross your fingers, say a prayer and wish me luck.While that's all very exciting for me, it's not much of a journal update, is it? Much about my journey has been surprising for me, and not at all what I expected or planned for. Aside from this latest Vermont development, something else important occurred that changed things for me. After only 3 weeks of hiking alone, I met a fellow solo hiker and we struck up a friendship. We have, more or less, been hiking partners since then. We both are slow hikers and don't do as many miles daily as most others on the trail and so in that respect we were well matched. Both he and I agreed that it is nice to have someone consistent with whom to share the daily challenges experiences and adventures and joys. But there is a little more to this story. I do not wish to betray any confidences, so I will be somewhat vague with the details. I'll try to balance his need for privacy with my desire to continue this journal. So, to that end, I will say only that he has several serious physical health challenges that, for most people, would make undertaking a thru hike of the AT out of the question. He started in Georgia several months ago and, hopefully, will cross the border into New Hampshire within the week. I very much enjoy his company and helping him achieve his goal of climbing Katahdin has become my goal too. He is a good man, a very good friend, and although not at all apparent to anyone on the trail, the strongest, bravest and best damned hiker on the trail. While hiking with him was not the adventure I thought I'd signed up for, it is the adventure I was meant to have. However, it has meant that I've not been able to update my journal here on this website in quite the way I had been. I am sorry to have had to make that decisison, but it was an easy one to make. Although I have to return to work (somewhere....) soon, I will continue to support him in any way I can and may even have to call upon other hikers who are still out there to help me help him fulfill this goal, should the need for that arise. So look for more updates in the near future as I unravel the dates and locations of my days thus far on the trail. Although my thru-hike has morphed into a section-hike, I managed to do about 500 miles. I'll be back on the trail as soon as I can. I've loved hiking the AT and it has changed my life (and Bodhi's) in so many ways! It may only be a few days or weeks or maybe even months, but it won't be years ever again.