Date: 2002-09-18
From: Maine

To: want to get to Georgia
Miles today: 11.0

September 18, 2002, Wednesday day 43Here I am a nice soft bed and a quiet place and I can¢t sleep. Woke up at 5 and couldn¢t get back to sleep. So I went ahead and went in to take a shower and thought I would lay back down to get some more sleep but I just lay here awake. I just can¢t sleep in, just can¢t do it. So I am up at 6:30 and I am going to go have some breakfast at a place called, Up for Breakfast. It¢s upstairs just a few blocks away. I am going to wait for the outfitter to open up too, to see if I can get some maps. Then I will try to hitch a ride back to the trail. It is about 10 minute to 9 now and I am leaving the Sutton Place and I am all packed up and my pack is super heavy. I mean it is full of food. I just went overboard I think. Overcast this morning but it looks like it might break. It¢s not supposed to rain till this weekend. When I went for breakfast this morning at the UP FOR BREAKFAST PLACE, I had 3 buckwheat pancakes and boy were they good. You know they have such great maple syrup here in Vermont. Called home this morning and talked to Mary and my son Danny is not doing so well. It¢s back to let go and let god do the worrying and work.   I did find out that they do have the maps here at Eastern Mountain Sports but they can¢t open their registers till 10am. So I went over to Duncan Donut¢s and had a red raspberry muffin and 2 cups of coffee, and that makes 6 cups of coffee this morning so I will be peeing down the trail. Ha. But I am going to get those maps because I really enjoy knowing where I am at. The haze has burn off but the sun is shining right now. I can¢t remember if I mentioned it or not but I washed my hat, and boy do I love this hat, and I left it in the dryer too long and it shrunk and it looks terrible, but I am wearing the damn thing anyway. I am back at the Eastern Mountain Sports here and getting a buckle replace and my maps and met a fellow Iowan from Fayette, Iowa. Jeff Birth, his wife is from Oregon and she got a teaching job out here so here he is, in Manchester, Vermont. He works here in the sports store.   Matt changed out my hip belt here and he did a good job but he cut his finger so he will always remember that guy, that Pa Kettle from Iowa that caused him to cut his finger half off. YEH, they changed out that hip belt for me for nothing, because they handle Gregory, and it went from a medium to a small. Man I tell ya, I am losing weight around the waist. My belly is flat but it sags, because some of you might remember when I weight 240 pounds, ha. 10:20 and I am on my way back to the trail. Going to see if I can hitch out. Fella gave me ride out; his name was Mark Scott. He is thinking about opening a hostel. He has a five-bedroom house and he is putting an addition on it and it¢s just a half a mile from the trail so maybe next year we will have another new hostel. He gave me a ride, great guy. 10:40am and I am ready to go on the trail. So that is pretty good timing. Sun is shining. Here we go with my new hip belt, so we will see how that plays out. I have to break a new hip belt out again, but the last one didn¢t take long to get it broke in. I am also hiking today without sock liners, I just have on my smart wool sock, but I did put some sports tape over my heels, I am still afraid to go without that. I talked to that outfitter at Mountain Goats yesterday and he said the same thing about Nike¢s, they are so slippery, he said he had a pair and he was slipping and sliding around all over the place. But you know me, I am so tight, I could have bought a new pair of Vask(don¢t know if I am spelling this right. Some words are hard to make out on the tape). Or Lowas? For a 170 bucks but I Thought these are still workable so I am gonna suffer through it. I can¢t stand spending that money. Like yesterday and this morning I probably spent at least 100 dollars while I was in town, that is ridiculous. But then I spend money at home for groceries too, 40 to 50 dollars a week plus the stuff I get at Walmart, so if I only spend a hundred dollars a week I guess I am all right. I started using that tincture of Benzene on my heels and toes. They say that gymnast use it to toughen up their hands so they don¢t get blisters and also it will toughen up your skin. I don¢t believe I met one northbounder yesterday, so it must be over with. But the man who gave me a ride out to the trail is a ice cream maker. Name is Wilcox. Makes Wilcox Ice Cream. Stopping for a break at the Spruce Peak shelter and what a shelter. It¢s a cabin and has a door on it and a stove with cut wood in here to have a fire. Pretty cool. Well now this hip belt seems too small.   I need one in between, it is kind of rubbing me the wrong way here. I am just now going through a kind of hard wood forest here and they cut a fallen tree that fell across the trail here. And for some reason I started thinking about Dad when we used to go to the timber and he would cut wood and that was one of my favorite times to be with him.   Cause he really enjoyed being out there and cutting wood and I did too. We would take our lunch and cut awhile and have a little lunch and sit there and listen to the silence. It was very enjoyable. Other times I remember with Dad and when we would go to work together when I was a kid. On the way home he would let me shift the gears on that old 39 Chevy. Other times when he had the Sunday paper out, it was very early in the morning and mom would be making eggs and bacon and everything was quiet, we would go off and get the papers and deliver them just him and I. Those were some good things to remember about my dad. Mary used to always say every Sunday, now we have to go down and see the folks, so we would go on Sundays and in the summertime he would be sitting out in the garage with the door open, you could count on it in his lawn chair, I can still see him there, I wish he was still sitting there. I listened to the same old stories, as I imagine my kids listen to my same old stories. In the wintertime after cutting all that wood and he would have it all chopped up outside there and bring it in to the old pot bellied stove in the garage. The garage wasn¢t insulated of course but we would have to go out there and talk, he would say, ¢come on out, I want to show you something he would say. So we would go out there and stand belly to it, then back to it, then belly to it and so on. We would listen to the same old stories again, and you know what, I wish I could listen to those same stories again. We didn¢t always get along..ha, I don¢t know how he put up with me all the crap I used to pull. You know what? There is a lot of forgiveness. You always think let¢s talk about the good times and think about the good times. I hope my kids do the same. It¢s one thing this trail does for you. It gives you time to reflect, think about the past. How things were and what my attitudes were then and what they are like now. How I can change now, and how I have changed and where I can make improvements. The lord has a purpose in everything. I guess there is a purpose in this little escapade also, this little adventure. Who knows where it is going to lead? I may not finish this trail because it almost seems impossible now because I am way behind schedule. So be it. What ever I¢ve done so far can¢t be taken away from me. Made a little over 11 miles today.   I am at Mile 547. Shelter by myself tonight. El Toro was here and when I got here he was eating as usual and he has packed up and hiking tonight and its pitch dark and 8:00 and he is out there hiking. He has one arm that is broke, has only one good arm. Gosh I don¢t¢ know, he is getting crazy. I think I am getting that hikers appetite. Tonight I just ate and ate and ate. So I had Lipton noodles with chow mien in it and then pop tart with peanut butter, fig bars with peanut butter, going to have to get more peanut butter. Then also some tortilla shells with peanut butter and hot chocolate. I am going to listen to a little NPR and see if I can sleep.