Date: 2008-12-17
To: Post Hike Entry
Miles today: 0.0

What is wrong with me?? I thought I might "settle" down a little after this last long walk and re-enter that world outside the Trail. I had been busy looking for property I might buy and grow a garden next year. I still have those thoughts, but they have been pushed way to the back of my mind in importance. The thing that has popped into the front of my mind is something I've wanted to do for a while now....walk the Continental Divide Trail through the Rocky Mtns from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. I have "kind of" settled down....just a little and for just a short while. I'm wintering at a friend's home north of Burlington, VT. It's a friend I walked with some back in '03 on a sobo hike of the AT....Dr Dolittle. I was talking to her on the cell phone while I was driving my truck in the south and told her what I was up to, when she made the offer to me that I could come north and spend the winter in VT. She had a spare bedroom that was only being used for storage. I didn't even have to think about it...I said "Sure!!" :-)Sooooo, I'm in northern VT and have settled in somewhat. Love getting the snow up here!! Had another 5 inches of the white fluffy stuff this morning.Beautiful day along the Long Trail in VTI've been busy planning my CDT hike that I'll be starting in April of '09. That's a looooong time away for me! I think I may squeeze in about a 1,000 mile bicycle ride early next year somewhere in the south. That should help the time pass till I can head out to NM to start my walk to Canada.Okay, back to this year's walk..........It was another fantastic year for me!! I did actually finish my nobo thru hike on the AT (with just one or two little side trips thrown in) in just over 10 months. I had really wanted to walk through Maine in late September and early October, and I was somehow able to slow down enough to do just that. :-)It ended up being my favorite time to walk through Maine. The leaves were beautiful in their full Autumn glory, the days were cool and the nights were fresh and there were NO BUGS!!! Katahdin was beautiful after it had some snow and ice on it from a storm six days before.Speaking of the Autumn leaves, for any of you that had any doubts as to whether or not I would be this year's champion in "The Leaf Catching Game", I'll give the final results....I WON!!! :-)It didn't take many catches to win this year. I think the other players knew from past years that they stood little to no chance of winning because I was playing. ( I get to make up the rules) Well, it rained a lot from the time I walked into VT, then walked through NH and all the way through Maine. There were lots of leaves falling on the days the storms were blowing through, but because it was raining so hard, I couldn't walk along looking to the skies for falling leaves, so the leaves I caught were extra special leaves...hard leaves to come by. The nice days should have produced more leaf catches, but all the loose leafs would get blown out of the trees in the storms, so there wouldn't be any leaves falling on the days that I could walk along and look towards the sky.My total count was 15 leaves. That's it....just 15 leaves!!! I'll bet some of you that didn't bother playing this year now wish you had done like you usually do and set up your lounge chair under the tree in your back yards and just waited for those leaves to fall on you. It would have only taken 16 leaves to win!! Even Goosebump The Snow Princess could have done that and she probably would have done well since she was almost nine months pregnant and had a large area for the falling leaves to land on.The Leaf Catching Game officially ended at about noon on October 8th, the day that I reached the summit of Katahdin....so anyone who tries emailing me that they had more than 15 leaves is just plain too late. I needed that information before I reached the summit. Even Clyde's grandson wasn't a match for me this year. :-)I found out that Amoeba considered any leaf that was stuck in a spider web to be a "caught" leaf. I ended up giving her so many demerits that her final count was -37.....that's 37 leaves BELOW zero!! That's the worst score I can remember anyone ever having. Pretty pathetic for someone who has walked the AT twice!! :-)My walk has been over for more than two months now. My body has been mostly resting for over two months. I really need to start getting more exercise. I have run a little along the bike path along Lake Champlain. I have explored some areas on my bicycle. I have done a little day hiking in the snow. I have done a LOT of cyber hiking on White Blaze....way too much!! I think I have posted more on White Blaze in the last few weeks than I ever did before. That has to stop!!I have started lifting weights. Not much, but enough to feel it.I'm looking for pity here.......... :-(I did have a great cross country bicycle ride in the middle of this year's walk. That was a fun and unexpected diversion. I also had an unexpected hike in the middle of this hike when I ended up finally doing the northern part of The Long Trail. That is a Trail I will do again!!I think those two things helped make this year's walk on the Appalachian Trail one of my favorites. I did get to walk in all four seasons too.It was one of the easiest year's I've had to walk the AT....weather wise. The only year that was easier because of the weather was the year that water was so easy to find back in '03. ;-)I always get asked why I walk the AT so much. I don't think I walk it too much at all!! I would love to be back on Springer again this New Year's Eve and start walking north again...but, I REALLY want to walk the CDT this coming year. I know if I was to start walking the AT again, it would be too hard to not continue to Maine. I guess I'm learning to be patient. 8-)I do read what some of the '09 AT hikers are posting and I feel left out. I would love to be a part of that crowd. ( patience is a difficult thing for me )I thought this "wrap up" entry was going to be about my gear or something like that, but I guess it's just going to be the ramblings of someone who is patiently waiting on his next long walk to begin. I want to thank my ol' buddy Chief for giving me so many great things to talk about. ( He makes it soooo easy! )I also want to thank Mrs Gorp....I want to REALLY thank Mrs Gorp for doing such a great job on transcribing my journal AND for causing a couple of those "diversions" this year!!I need to thank Hammock Hanger for filling in as transcriber while Mrs Gorp was away...and for rescuing Mrs Gorp and me from St Augustine after we finished our cross country bicycle ride. I also REALLY want to thank Nancy and Bob Baker from White Rocks Coffee House in Dallas, TX for the great meal, great company and for roasting and selling the excellent coffee!! that made me switch from Starbuck's. :-)I had a great time walking with Mother Nature and Smokestack....and I have to thank them for the storage of a few items of mine. :-)Any of you that have read some of my other journals, will know all about some of my closest Trail friends, Frogcaller and Lew, who I met three days into my first hike and we have become great friends....and they are always helping me out in one way or another. Thanks!! :-)Thanks to everyone who followed along on this year's walk. I met lots of you along the Trail, I talked to lots of you either on the phone or through email. It was always fun hearing from you and some of the guestbook entries were much more entertaining than my journal was.I guess that one of the most satisfying things was when I was going through some old emails after I had finished my walk and I came across this one from Jan Liteshoe Extremely Booooooring!! ;-) dated 12-27-05....more than two full years after her hike;Jan Leitschuh to Stumpknockershow details 12/27/05 Reply372.7K..I'm just sayin'... why don't you go right now and add a few more clicksSeems only fairReply ForwardI realized that at that time....more than two FULL years after her hike was done, she was braggin' to me about having 372.7K hits on that boring, hohum, poorly written journal of hers. ;-) That's one more thing that I want to thank all of you that followed along on this year's journal for. If Liteshoe was a boat, she would have sank...if Liteshoe was an airplane, she would have puttered and fallen from the sky...if Liteshoe was car, she would have crashed....if Liteshoe was a train, she would have been derailed....if Liteshoe was a Stumpknocker, she would have had well over 387,000 hits.....and then I would have never heard the end of it. So I REALLY want to thank all of you for pushing me over the top by 15,000 hits in a FULL two years less than it took that poor excuse of a hiker to do so on her journal in '03.Hey Jan, I WIN. HA!!!! :-) * Disclaimer; This is for any of you that don't remember the playful banter that went on in '04 when I had some I.T. friends actually make Liteshoe's journal counter go backwards by three counts for every hit she had. ( I can write crap like this about her because she is a very good friend and still to this day has the best written journal that I know of and wrote one of the best books I've ever read. )** Definition of the "Disclaimer" above; Words written about Liteshoe to save my hide. :-)Thanks!!! :-)