Date: 2016-04-25
From: Rest Day

To: Uncle Johnnys Hiker Hostel
Miles today: 0.0

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow were/are/will be very relaxed but boring enforced rest days. I went to the urgent care center yesterday. The doctor prescribed sulphantibiotics. I got 10 days worth, and I am to take 2 doses per day. I started taking my medicine yesterday, and saw no improvement. When I woke up this morning and looked at my foot, I was very pleasantly surprised. The discoloration and the swelling are nearly gone. Wow! I LOVE the job this medicine is doing for me. I will be sure to continue taking the medicine until it is gone. There is a HUGE difference between my one year, around the world bicycle trip (O2K) and hiking the AT. On O2K, there were 250 people, who all had the same daily destination 70-100 miles down the road. We all took the same route, so all day long you met your traveling companions either riding with them, passing them, or being passed by them. There wasn't a single day where I wasn't highly motivated and happy to be there. The AT is ENTIRELY different. I am a group of one. I started out with a group of people, but over a period of several weeks, most of them are now ahead of me, or they have dropped out. Every day, I have to make a decision as to how far I will travel that day. At first, I decided I would stay only at campsites that had a "shelter" (a 3 walled, with one side exposed to the elements sleeping shed). My reason for this is because although I sleep in my tent, and not the shelters, these campsites have/had "bear cables" where I could hang my food bag to protect my food from being eaten by an animal at night while I sleep. The other advantage to "shelters" is that they used to have a privy, so I didn't have to use my trowel. The ddisadvantage to shelter campsites is that they are haphazardly located. Sometimes they are either so close together or so far apart that it means either a very short hiking day for me, or a very long hiking day for me. As the shelters will not have either bear cables or privies for many, many miles, there is no longer a clear advantage to using them, and I will now choose any campsite that is approximately the distance I want to hike that day, provided it has a reliable source of water. The biggest difference between O2K and the AT is that on O2K there was a HUGE group of us all traveling together & encouraging one another. On the AT, I chat with the people who hike past me, or the people I am camping with that night, but then we all go our separate ways in the morning. I have a few sheets of laminated paper with inspiring thoughts written on them that I read to myself every night to keep my motivation up. On the AT, if a person doesn't frequently self motivate, he/she may find a reason to drop out. The other BIG difference between O2K and the AT is that (in my opinion) the AT is FAR harder then O2K. (Personally, it is the toughest thing I have ever attempted.) I have heard that two O2K cyclists, Art & Lynn have hiked the AT. If this is true, I would be interested to know which event was more physically & mentally challenging for them (Of course, Art & Lynn are in such phenominal physical condition that they may have found BOTH events to be relatively easy.) I can't close this post without bragging about the two celebrities I have met: Barack Obama and Jerry Garcia. Both were dogs at hiker hostels.