Date: 2009-09-18
To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Hello journal readers!Well, I am home after a very very long day spent on a shuttle, public bus, and in a sweet Hyundai rental car. I've been back a few days now and trying to readjust back to the life I left behind 6.5 months ago. It's all too weird.On Tuesday morning, Rocket, Muster and myself, along with 3 other hikers, hopped in to the truck taking us to Medway. It was a ride from hell, the truck was practically up on 2 wheels in hopes of getting us there on time. We survived, then hopped on the bus to Bangor, another hellish ride filled with horrible country music and a 9-11 tribute, all recorded by the rude bus driver. I have never seen Muster so agitated, and Rocket contemplated throwing herself from the bus. Thankfully, our rental car was waiting in Bangor, we had all control from this point forward, phew! Rocket and I dropped Muster back off in Rangeley to cover a section she had recently missed, so we got to see Bob and Gwendy again at the Gull Pond Lodge one last time. That Gwendy is such a cool dog! We said our good-byes to Muster and started on our 12 hour long road trip. Putting 2 people behind the wheel for that many hours after barely driving in 6.5 months is a lot to ask, but we did just fine and enjoyed our time unwinding and reliving certain parts of the trail. It was just a super long day, we were driving the amount of hours we'd normally be hiking for. The drive certainly felt longer than our day's hike, and of course wasn't as fulfilling as hiking. We returned to my house pretty late but Rocket still made the rest of the drive back to her home. I hugged her good-bye, then proceeded to cry like a baby. She lives close by, but still, our adventure was really over and I wouldn't see her every day all day anymore. We've shared so many moments together, it's weird to be separated more than a few minutes or a mile apart. So I've been home for a few days now and it feels weird to be back in civilization. Spending 6.5 months in the woods feels like an awfully long time, there is so much you just become accustomed to. People ask (mainly my mom) why it's so hard to adjust back when you have lived your entire life up until the start of this hike one certain way, but only spend half a year in a completely different way. Point taken, however, it's a completely different life style that you are living in the moment every single moment of every day. In the "slave" world, you wake up, do the usual morning routine, work, come back home, repeat. Not a lot changes, you kind of go through the motions each day but are not necessarily happy, but do it because you have to, it's what you have programmed yourself to do. There is not much beauty, there is traffic, noise, people, deadlines, you get it. Along this journey, things change on a minute to minute basis, and most days never turn out as you had planned or expected it to. You could plan a 15 mile day, end up at a road crossing that leads .2 to an ice cream shop, show up for some cold treats, then run into family you haven't seen in 10 years. Before you know it, you are watching 4th of July fireworks and tubing on a the lake you were just looking down on from the ridge line hours earlier thinking "look at all those boats, people are having so much fun and we still have a bunch of miles to cover." Life is also lived in it's simplest form. What you need to live fits on your back, nothing more, nothing less. The only worries are "do I have enough food for the next few days?" A certain bit of planning is involved on a day to day basis, and that's really it. Get up, walk, see something amazing, take a break, eat, see another beautiful place, and so on. You spend all of your time with incredible people who deal with the same daily struggles, we're all in it together and become family. Hiking the Appalachian Trail is the hardest thing I have ever done, yet it's the easiest and simplest thing I'll ever do. The trail community is amazing and supportive, so coming back to a place where people are not so friendly is hard to adjust back to. I'll just need time. More to come as my thoughts unfold, there is just way too much to process right now.