"Lucky Star"

Successes:

My longest day has been about 17 miles...first day in the Smokies, actually.

My Trail name is Lucky Star. I do find this whole trail name thing a bit cheesy, to be quite honest. But, at the same time, it is growing on me. I was hiking about a week back near Wayah Bald in North Carolina and ran into this one older woman twice. The first time she expressed genuine joy in the fact that I was hiking alone (sort of a girl power sort of thing, maybe...but not in a cheesy way), and then gave me some advice on what was to come. The second time I ran into her was a quick encounter on the trail and she dubbed me "Lucky Star" - and many of you who read this know of my strange habit of drawing a little star on the pinkie knuckle of my right hand - which I've done for nearly nine years know. So I thought Lucky Star was a good fit...then I thought it just sounded too cheesy.

Well two days ago at Fontana Dam, Turtle and Jazzman (an older - but not old - couple hiking to Maine) were asking about my name and I told them the little story I just told you. Less than 1/2 hour later, Turtle comes out of the General Store and tells me there is a shirt inside with "Lucky Star" on it. That was weird to both me and Turtle seeing I had just told her the story. So I bought the shirt and have figured "Lucky Star" is meant to be.

Maybe I'll open up a coffee shop one day and call it "Lucky Star" and it will be a success.

I'm not addicted to coffee anymore (no headaches or morning groginess), but I do think about it often when I'm hungry and exhausted. So in a sense, I guess I'm sort of still addicted.

Hmmmmm, what other successes??? I guess the biggest is that I'm still out here, healthy and enjoying the beauty of the trail.

I did go rafting that one day at the NOC. It was snowing. It was cold. Trigger, Pink Blaze Nazi and I all froze our butts off on the two hour float through the raging rapids (not so raging really - up to Class III). Totally worth it, though.

That's all for now folks.