Date: 2005-05-22
From: [?]

To: lunch at Walkers Gap
Miles today: 7.0

I've been slackin a bit on this journal thing. I don't really know why. I may be going through a bit of post-Trail Days depression. For the whole first part of this trip that was the goal...JUST GET TO TRAIL DAYS! Now its over and the next goal is Philly, but wow, that's far away! I know this too shall apss, just trying to enjoy the trail day by day.It's weird to be missing stuff at home for some reason. I miss stuff all the time when I'm in WI, but I feel so far away. Oh well, I'll be home soon enough. AT, AT, AT!JIM! Thought you might enjoy seeing your name on screen! Just a little note to let you know how much I miss you and love you, can't wait to visit somewhere North of here. I've got to tell you, I'm so impressed and proud of you and your accomplishments this year, Love Ya!So what has the A.T. been like the past few days? Well...PB&J and I hauled from Raccoon Branch to PArtnership Shelter a few days ago. A quick hike, but well worth it. Youa re able to order piizza from the phone at the Visitor Center there. Wow, that was some yummy stuff! There is also a shower at the shelter. Beautiful and WARM! It was great to get clean. No clean clothers, but at least a clean VOGUE! Because we were there so early we were even able to go into town to re-supply. One less thing to do the next day. there were tons of people there, but fun was had by all. The 21st was also fueled by the motivation to treats. There was a Dairy Queen tight on the trail! Unbuh! It was beautiful hiking, lots of fields, we even heard a Timber Rattler! I didn't see it, Southpaw and Nipnuck did, but hearing it was enough for me! The DQ was also worht the haul, but wow I can only eat so much ice cream. Our group ended up haging out at one of our friend's Drifter, hotel room until 9:30pm and we then hiked another 2 miles back into the woods. FUN, FUB, FUN! A little disco action with blinking headlamps and stops for snap shots of the moon.We then all woke up not realizing we were actually camped at the water source we planned to hit first that day, and hiked on with out much. Ooops! Again, the day was beautiful. Fields, cows, cow pies, etc. Oh and quite exciting....we hit the 1/4 way mark! Only another 1632 miles to go!! I remember hitting the 1/20th mark and being excited, Funny.It was also a day of STILES, these were all amazing steep ladders to climb over with our packs, no not the ones that you walk through, we actually had to climb over fences. I was NOT excited about them.Again, we did a little late day hiking. The last 5 miles in just a few hours. My knee wasn't all that excited, but it really got my adrenaline pumping! I'm liking the late shift more and more. So nice and cool after the heat of the day.And today...a BIG climb up to Chestnut Knob Shelter, but wow, the views were AMAZING! The shelter was pretty cool too. It was a fully enclosed building with the picnic table inside. Great for a snack stop, but I'm not so sure I'd want to actually stay there.At the moment we are all crashed out at Walker Gap waiting to meet up with a former hiker that Team Methance became quite close to earlier in the trip. He lives pretty close to the AT and is supposed to be bringin food. How exciting! The hours are passing though, so we'll see how far we actually make it today.