More of North Carolina and Tennessee |
April 23rd Miles: 23 Stayed: Deer Park Mountain Shelter Fried up some apple bannock for breakfast. Yum! ran into Carolina Cruiser near the bottom of Max Patch mountain. Ate wonton soup with cheese and beef jerky at the summit. Ran into mom at Lemon Gap, stayed 2 hours and had lunch, soda and candy. Mom had already seen about 30 hikers by the time I came through around noon. |
Was going to go to Hot Springs, but ended up staying at a shelter 3 miles from there. Hot tubbing tomorrow! Stayed up late into the night watching the stars. Slept by the fire with Play. I had been hearing about Play and a bunch of the other people at this shelter from mom for days - and had never met them until now. Great bunch! |
April 24th Miles: 3.2 Stayed: Hot Springs Campground I walked into town before 8am, and found mom in the campground. The van was surrounded by other hiker tents. What a crowd! Mom was wicked sleepy, so I wandered around town by myself most of the day. When mom finally woke up at 5pm (She was feeling really sick), we went out to the diner. Guess who we bumped into? Radar! It was the first we had seen of him since Gatlinburg. We all went to the pub to listen to the live music and hang out. We had an appointment for the hot tub so we grabbed Radar. We soaked for over an hour and yacked up a storm. |
April 25th Miles: Zero Stayed: Hot Springs Campground I wanted to take a Zero day, but I wanted to do something productive. Since another hiker is working as a carpenter at Mr Hicks' house, I asked if I could work for half a day. Earning money never hurts :-) I spent 4 hours sanding excess joint compound off of sheetrock, making it smooth and pretty in preparation for painting. |
When I came back to the campground, I looked like a ghost. I was totally covered in the white dust. I took a quick shower to wash off the grime before heading over to the hot tubs. We got another free hot tub excursion! Mom called up Radar to see if he wanted to come soak with us, and drove him down from where he was staying. We all enjoyed a nice hour long soak ... We later went to Kodiak and Sassy's party and enjoyed more music at the pub. |
April 26th Miles: 5.9 Stayed: Hot Springs I had every intention of leaving Hot Springs today... Honest! I can't help it - the vortex sucked me in! I was going to leave, but didn't have much enertia. I eventually peeled myself away from talking to everybody outside of the outfitters, and went hiking 6 miles up the trail with Zeke. He actually acted like a responsible dog when he had his pack on. |
April 27th Miles: 20.2 Oh, the enertia! This morning I didn't wake up until almost 8am. It was hard work just to keep my eyes open... So I pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep. Eventually peeled myself out of bed when HikerBikerBabe and the Lion King came over. Got packed, drove to Allen Gap, and hiked 20 miles. At this point, my journal entries pretty much drop off. I can't cheat and use my mother's journals as |
crib notes to jog my memory, because this is when she stopped keeping track, too. |
Ever seen a "Hikers Yield To Traffic" sign before? Neither had I, until I ran across this one. They were making a regular road into a 4 lane mega-highway when I went through. |
I like interesting signs :-) |
May 3rd 2003 Today is my 4 month anniversary! I started hiking at the southernmost point buoy in Key West 4 months ago. So far I have consumed approximately: 240 Gallons of water 300 pounds of homemade backpacking food 6 pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream 2 Dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts 1 Watermelon 6 Cantelope 1 Dozen Pinapple 3 Dozen Girl Scout Cookies 4 Gallons Chocolate Milk/Chocolate Soldiers 4 Quarts Whole Yogurt And on and on and on... Yet I've lost: 30 pounds 3 dress sizes Hmmm, I should eat another pint of Ben and Jerry's before I waste away into nothing. :-) The longest milage days so far were: 31.5 30.5 25 23 |
Mom and I went back to Hot Springs, North Carolina. We took a bunch of zero days. I hiked 85.6 miles from Carver's Gap, to Damascus, Virginia. Once in Damascus, I took several more days off to enjoy the festivities of Trail Days. A bunch of circumstances piled together and made mom and I decide to come home to Vermont. Mom got a flare-up of congestive heart failure, lupus and myasthenia gravis all at once ;-o Currently I'm working in Vermont as a carpenter, to earn money to pay the IRS and gather enough money to keep traveling. Mom and I wanted to leave Vermont in July and head to Newfoundland, Canada. Alas.....maybe that won't happen. Our adventure van died at 204,000 miles and mom is awfully sick. Now she has kidney stones besides all the other stuff! I think I will walk from home to the Appalachian Trail and go on without van support until we can get another vehicle. I will REALLY miss my mom! She wants me to keep hiking and gave me her blessing to go. Anybody have a rich friend who would like to donate an RV or van? :-) |
