Date: 2015-04-28
From: Hot Springs, North Carolina

To: Hot Springs, North Carolina
Miles today: 15.0
Weather: clear sky

Brad/No Worries and I hike at different speeds.   He is faster.   So I am often ¢alone¢ on the trail.   I see other hikers, especially the youngsters, who pass me on the trail.   (See ¢Shelter Injustice¢, 2 posts from now.)   I also see and have gotten to recognize the trail names and faces of some of the other 55+ hikers. Brad & I will join them at breakfast or dinner when in town or at the shelters. Basically, if others walk the same distance we do each day, then I will eventually recognize and get to know them. But if they consistently walk less or more distance, then I will never know them.   Those who know me will be surprised that I walk slow.   I am often accused of walking too fast back in Minnesota, by my wife, and others. But my basic speed on the AT is to plod along, especially uphill.   Even downhill I tend to walk slower, using my poles as much as I can to protect my knees.   On the seemingly rare level parts of the AT, I walk as fast as most others, perhaps excluding the youth again. I try to get up at 6:30AM, and be on the trail with Brad by 7:45.   Then often Brad takes off.   I will keep walking to 5 to 7:30PM, 5:30PM typically, to cover 15 miles, and eventually more.   So I have a lot of time by myself, which is OK with me.   I planned for that by bringing an .MP3 player, and loading it with 24GB of files.   And I enjoy using it.   The .MP3 player I have is not the more common Apple iPod Nano. That only has 16GB. I have the SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip 8GB MP3 Player, to which I added a 16GB memory stick.   24GB gives me about 200 hours of audio files.   I have these files on it: 75 hours Classical music; Mostly orchestral symphonies and piano concerto¢s50 hours 60¢s to 70¢s Pop and Rock music, Moody Blues, Beatles, Barbra Streisand, easy listening kind of music25 hours of National Public Radio Intelligence squared debates, on things like "Is It Time To Abolish The Death Penalty?"100 hours of audio books.   These include ¢To Kill a Mockingbird¢, The Things They Carried, by Tim O¢Brien, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, by Eric Metaxas, Huck Finn, by Samuel Clemens, Lord of the Flies, and 12 dozen books on seafaring sailing adventures of the 1800¢s from the series ¢Master and Commander. 25 hours of the past 7 years of the Bethesda Church Easter and Christmas choir concerts, of which I am a member, Bass. By the way, the battery of the player is internal, not replaceable, and plays for only about six hours. So I also use a 2200 mAHr charger.   But never for my smartphone, which I mostly carry turned off.   I keep the player in a weatherproof bag when it is raining or fog, and I¢ve had a lot of rain and fog the past 2 weeks.   But I¢ve used the player enough to appreciate it. I have listened to To Kill a Mockingbird and The Things They Carried.   I couldn¢t find the 2nd disk of To Kill a Mockingbird until after I was done with the other disks, so It was a bit amusing listening to it out of order, but such things happen. I find that the audio books take more concentration, so I only listen to them if I want to concentrate, which is not often. Music can set or change my mood.   I listened to the albums by Simon and Garfunkel during a rainy stretch, and realized that their moody/somber/depressing music was making an otherwise depressing day even more depressing, so I switched to something more uplifting. I often play the classical or pop/rock music on random mode, so it functions just like a radio, never knowing what will come next.   The .MP3 player has a radio, but I have yet to try it, and suspect that the radio stations here are few and far between. I have yet to listen to any of the NPR podcasts, because they also require more concentration and can be depressing, usually covering series topics such as the death penalty. I know I could have brought the entire Bible and listened to it several times. Presumably it is freely or inexpensively available, but I did not, also because I didn¢t want to concentrate. After all, I must concentrate on placing my feet each step much of the time, due to rocks, roots, steps, mud and elevation change. I have enjoyed my Christmas music especially, from Point of Grace and the Bethesda Choir. Transports me to a different place and time, perhaps. And here are two semi-related music stories, lest you think I have too high of an opinion of myself.   I AM proud that I am thus far successfully walking the AT, but you will see that my music prowess is limited.   My kids seem to have figured out music far better than I. 15 years ago I took voice music lessons at St. Josephs school of music, same place where my kids took piano, flute and trombone lessons.   At our first annual concert, I was the first singer.   Great, I thought, how nice.   Only gradually at the concert did it dawn on me that Sr Rose put the worst singers first and the best singers last.   OK, no problem I thought, I had just recently begun the voice lessons.   Then a year of voice lessons went by.   Our 2nd annual concert arrived, and, guess what, I was AGAIN the first singer.   Ok, one year first was bad enough, but two years in a row? Apparently Sr Rose was none too satisfied with my ¢progress¢.   That was discouraging enough that I shortly thereafter quit the voice lessons. About 7 years ago I began singing in the Bethesda Church Choir, joining the same time David my son did.   He sings Tenor, I sing Bass.   There are about half the men in most church choirs as women, so Kathy Matychuk, the choir director seems glad to get the men to sing.   And Kathy by-the-way does a really great job as choir director, with the perfect balance of sarcastic humor and direction pointing out all the flaws that only she can seem to hear, but that makes us better.   Anyways, there were four men singing Bass.   I was in the middle of the four..   I learned that most choir directors put the better singers in the middle, so others can follow their lead.   The guy standing on the end struggled (IMHO) to sing the right note. Often he was in the wrong octave, again IMHO.   So he was correctly on the end of our row.   Then, a few years ago, he had to leave the choir due to health issues. There were still 3 or 4 Bass singers, but I was moved to¢¦. the end, the same spot as the guy I complained about that couldn¢t sing. and as far away from the mike as possible.   Oh well, I guess my true singing abilities were apparent. I still enjoy the choir singing, and listening to our choir concerts, with the Bass part prominent. on my MP3 player, on the trail.