Date: 2004-06-29
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: broken clouds

We pass right by Antietem Park and shelter, a place infamous for beinghome to the greatest single loss of life in the Civil War. We don'teven stop to sign the shelter log, even though two trail volunteersworking on a log bridge implore us do so. A little girl of maybe 5 or6 catches a "froag" and holds him frog-hostage in a 12-pack MountainDew box. She says he "hopes." Antietem means nothing to her, so Idecide it shall mean nothing to me. I am sorry for all the death andpain man inflicts upon man, but I turn my face from it and walk North.At the next shelter, a guy sits reading Wildlife and Nature magazines. We saw him hop off his motorcycle back at the road and run up thetrail. He gives me the creeps. But Big Stick wants to stop forsnacks. There are two small shelters here, each with a gigantic pileof stones-around-a-truck-wheel-well fire pit out front. One shelter islabeled "Snoring," the other "Non-Snoring." After nearly 100 days outhere on the trail, I understand this joke very well.Setting out this morning, I got well ahead of Big Stick in a shortspace of time. We've been walking together for a few days now and I'msurprised when he comments on my quick pace. It is the pace I alwayswalk at now, with the exception of impossibly steep inclines. It is asfast as you could walk on a flat sidewalk without breaking into a run. It is almost a trot. Perhaps he's right, though. My pack growsever-lighter as I deplete my food supply, and the effect of a just apound or two lighter is amazing. This is how Flying Brian makes 35mile days. No tent, just a half-pound sil-nylon tarp. No change ofclothes. Three day's food tops. Back at Antietem, the workers said something that irked me. They askedour "numbers," that is to say what number thruhiker we are/were when wepassed the halfway point at Harper's Ferry and joined the registry ofhikers. When we both answer in the early 400s, one man shakes his headand says, "Hmm, getting up there." My brain shouts, "Fuck you." Thisis not a race. This is not a race.I feel as though I am at the end of the pack, and it isn't a greatfeeling.-RSM[Written on Ronnie Raygun's week of mourning]Surreal romp through the fast forest of morning today stomping theterra double-times to reach a road crossing and a rumored ride to town. Surreal music, that is. Or voice/music overlay. Ronnie Reagan and RayCharles, suddenly married in a weird mournful tribute montage of Ray'ssong and Ronnie's rockem-sockem "Don't tread on us!" rah rah Americadrama club champion oratory overlayed. Very strange. And I'm verynear D.C. now and all I can think is: Yesterday the old coot's corpseflew over my head on its way to the rotunda, and this afternoon they'regonna wheel his old bones back on another armor-plated stealth jet androar over my head again on route to Simi Valley Cali-Cali and stick himin the ground just as the final green flash goes, "Ffffllllppppuut" andthe Pacific goes dark and mournful forever more. Dead President flyingover my head, and old Ray Charles finally getting' his sight back on thestreets of Heaven and me? I've been humpin' the Blue Ridge with allthe gonzo conviction and masochistic foot-mashing, bone-crunchingslam-dunk drive of Attila the Hun on a rotgut homebrew binge & tear,stomping out 90 miles in just 4 & 1/2 days.   Madness. And the result?Well, hell, it was suddenly announced to be a nationalholi-day-of-mourning, so, why should I work? Hiking from dawn to dusk,some 12 hours a day for close to a whole workweek. I quit. ¢RSMFor the full story of Rick's journey, visit Jigglebox.com