Date: 2011-09-22
From: Doppler's House

To: Day 133 - 143
Miles today: 0.0

We woke up pretty early and Doppler offered to give me a ride to the airport before work. Which was clutch because I was way too hung-over to make my way to the airport on my own. I would have had to find another Dunkin Donuts to get my shit together for sure. Upon boarding the plane in Bangor, I was immediately reminded about real-world etiquette and politeness. You see I forgot to take a shower at Doppler's and have been drinking and walking around town like a homeless person for a while. And even though showering once a week is pretty good by my standards it is completely unacceptable in mainstream public, especially in packed aircraft fuselages. Two people sat down next to be and had to move, presumable because of how I smelled...   I made it back to my Dad's house in WV without much trouble. I fully intended to to stay there for just a day or two before getting back on the AT. But I wound up staying for over a week pounding down some calories and fine-tuning my gear. I think my Dad and Stepmom were a little worried because of how emaciated I look. They made a point to stuff me full of as much food as they could while they had me under their care. I was also able to make quite a few refinements to my gear. I've given up water filters for good I think and am gonna permanently switch to a little dropper bottle of bleach to treat my water. I also shed about 2/3 of the weight from my first aid kit and dropped my plastic trowel. It's funny that it took me over 1,000 miles to figure out that I can just dig a cathole with a stick... All in all it was a much-needed break from hiking, albeit a little longer that I had expected. What was even more much-needed was the money I was able to earn while I was there. I helped my Dad build a huge outdoor fireplace out of stone and lay down a big poolside patio out of pavers at the in-laws house. A few hundred bucks for a few days of hard labor was just what I needed to keep me going.    And "keep going" is all that I can think about right now. Most of my friends just finished their hike. I've only completed my northbound section and I've still got a heck of a lot of miles to hike before I can officially call myself a thru-hiker. And if I was to get off the trail at any time, this would probably be the most likely and most logical place for me to end it. I think a more practical person might choose not to start hiking half of the AT in October with just a couple dozen mail-drops and a few hundred bucks. But I'm all-in at this point; I'm gonna walk until I finish this thing or until my body won't let me walk anymore.    This next section is gong to be very different I anticipate. I'll have to dip into a brand new bubble of thru-hikers and make friends with a bunch of SoBo's that I have nothing in common with (Save for the fact that we've all hiked the very same stretch of AT so far.) Shit, I guess I'm going to be a SoBo myself from now on. The seasons are changing outside all over again. Up in New England most of the leave have already fallen and the trees have switched in to Winter-mode, especially in the high country. Down here, signs of fall are just starting to appear on the top of the ridge line. It looks like I'm going to hop up on the ridge and literally race the Fall as it travels south over the Virginia Highlands. This is for sure going to be a much different Appalachian Trail than what I'm used to. And I am nothing but excited. Flinging myself into uncomfortable uncommon scenarios to see how I fare has almost become commonplace in my life as of late. And, so far, I've done just fine I think. No regrets. The signs are telling me to keep on doing what I'm doing!