I can't upload photos...but I do have a massive update!

I'm trying to upload some more photos, but this computer seems to have some restrictions...and the space bar is a little bit of a pain in the derrier to use, so forgive me if there are some words running together.

I suppose a simple worded update will have to do now...but I've got some really cool pictures!

Anyway, it has been a while, hasn't it??? I FINALLY left Damascus after nearly ten days there. Me and Pyrofly got sucked into volunteering (which is a good thing) with Tent City to get the tentsites ready for Trail Days. It was worth the break - and I think my body genuinely appreciated the time off. Trail Days was fun...it definitely served its purpose of seeing folks I haven't seen in a while. I think I mentioned before that the town attracts nearly 27,000 people or so during the three days of festivities, which include a hikers parade/water fight with the spectators, food, tent city, vendors from various manufacturors - the vendors had many free give-aways raffle style (none of which I won),and repaired any damaged products cost free. But that sort of makes sense because we are basically walking advertisements for their products. I got my packs seams resewn - not much of a significant repair, but needed and appreciated nonetheless.

And one more time before I leave the Trail Days subject, THANK YOU :) again Walking Stick 75 for all your trail magic!!! - the meals you cooked were amazing, and I never thought I'd bake a cake on the trail!

Since Damascus, we've made it through the 1/4 distance completed barrier...which is roughly 547 miles down, 3x that many to go....ahhhhhh!!!! But I'm actually still having loads amount of fun, so it's all good.

It rained while I slept for the first time in ages. And for the record, I smell worse than I have ever smelled before. My clothes will not smell clean ever again, I don't think. Even after I wash them, they still stink - there is a slight florally cleanish odor to them, but it is mostly overpowered by hiker stench. i guess. ewwww. grody.

Ohhh, it was cool visiting Troutdale again - we were there maybe five days ago. Christina and I rode through there on our cross-country bike ride ( http://stephonabike.easyjournal.com/). It's not much of a big town, but the baptist church has a bunkhouse set up, a nice lawn for tents, showers, towels, and Jerry's Restaurant just down the way. I ate there maybe three years ago on our bike journey and met 2006 thru-hikers who helped inspire me to actually hike the trail one day...and after three years and many more inspirational people, moments, movies, etc. I'm finally out here doing it and loving life.

Taking ten days off for Trail Days has sort of mixed up the group of people surrounding me, so I am more or less hiking with a new everchanging crew of folks. And there have been quite a few people to leave the trail. Like Pineapple...I'm glad I got to hike with you for a bit and hopefully I'll see you in NYC! (And no, we did not pack out the white picket fence...how sad).

We got to see a movie drive-in style in Marion, VA. We intended to stop in Atkins for post office purposes - but missed the closing time just before Memorial Day weekend by 4 minutes. Then we ran into Z and Zippedy at the Ingles in Marion while resupplying food and they informed us of the Drive-in...so we didn't actually drive in, we walked in with sleeping pads and sleeping bags. But Night at the Museum 2 and Star Trek were both playing. It was fun. I fell asleep before Star Trek ended. oops.

Today, we have had an abundance of Trail Magic. There were nearly 8 people at Laurel Creek tenting/hammoking. Pyrofly was taking his time getting ready this morning, and it all worked out cause around 9 am, a church group from Arkansas here just for the week drove up and invited those of us still there (5 people) to a breakfast feed for hikers. Awesome. The food was soo yummy, hot, delicious, filling, and greatly appreciated. We then hiked 7 miles to the road to Bland with a man whose name I don't know who had food and chilled Capri-Suns waiting for us...then he offered me, Pyrofly, Jumper Cable, Spring Peeper and Sparky the Plugs a ride into town - which is great because we've heard Bland can be a hard town to hitch in and out of. Anyway, I'm in Bland, VA now. Hopefully we'll be able to get a ride back to the trail easy enough...which is what I should be doing now.

So yeah, it's kind of a random update, but it works. Computers seem to be harder to find, but I'll write again soon...

Anyone wanna give me a ride back to the trail head???

much aloha.

deja vu

I've made it to Damascus. This is my second time here! It's great to be back. The town is having its 'Largest Yard Sale of the Year,' though, so it's actually a bit overwhelming with all the people and cars. And I'll be back next week for Trail Days with even more people. My understanding is that this town attracts about 30,000 people in a three day period. That's a lot of people. And I'll be one of them.

Unfortunately, this has to be a quick update. I'm just having a difficult time figuring out what to write. I think it's because I haven't had my town coffee yet. On the trail I don't drink coffee and am fine, but in town coffee is the first thing I want in the morning. So I guess I'm just half-way addicted. :)

But we officially in our fourth state and 463 miles down...a lot more to go. There have been some crazy hard and crazy beautiful mountains to go up and over. Some wonderful trail magic. Some not so great rain, and lots of lovely sunshine.

I'll write more soon. hopefully with a few more photos.

Even more Pictures

So I've yet to figure out how to rotate pictures - but these are some horizontal ones I was able to find...


A half-day winter scene in the Smokies. The sun is shining, though, for a pleasant change. And it continued to shine nearly ten days straight after this hour!

Sunset on Max's Patch. It's pretty, huh? One really good thing about balds is the views they provide. Once the leaves grow on the trees for the year, I think out visibility will dramatically decrease again. BUT, the leaves will shade us from the powerful sun...

This is the trail magic scene just below max's patch (clearly were not on the bald because there are plenty of trees). The guy on the far left (cheeseburger, I think) is cooking for us, and the guy next to him is also a trail angel. Most everyone else besides 2 or 3 others are hikers...although these trail angels did thru-hike last year, so technically, they are hikers too. just no current ones.

Some current thru-hikers, just in case you're curious what thru-hikers look like. Megan and Scooner (both standing) are hiking together and Paul and his mom, Martha, (sitting on the log) are also hiking together.
more pretty flowers using my very neato macro feature...

more pictures on the at...

This is the little oasis of Standing Bear Farm.  It has everything we could ever want without ever having to step a foot into town...but I do like towns.  

We are all enjoying the wondrous sunset on Max's Patch...and each other's company, it looks like.

The mini tent-city on Max's Patch.  Look at the fly in the center of the picture...  I probably had 10 swarming around my head that day at any given moment.  Those little sucker's bite, too.  they bite hard enough to draw blood.  And it hurts.  badly.  

We've more or less been hiking on the Tennessee/North Carolina border for a couple weeks now.  At nearly every road crossing, I've seen a Welcome sign to either one of these states.

A double decker shelter.  I don't recall the name of this one - they all have special names.  This one didn't have a broom.  someone probably took it home as a souvinere (I can't spell tonight...how do you spell this word???  My bedtime's at dark, and it's nearly midnight now, so i'm a bit loop.).  Anyway, the floors were covered in dust and dirt.  but were used to that, i guess.  We met Wolf Taffy this evening, and he had to help the emt people evacuate an older man off the mountain after his heart decided to not work probperly.  not so good.  but the man's ok.

A few photos

These are a few photos.  I'm still trying to figure out how to upload these things. 

This is my lovely home.  26 ounces.  Lots of space.  It took me about a week to learn how to properly set it up - and even still, there's always more to learn, right?  There were about 9 of us tenting up on Max's Patch that night to a beautiful sunset...and just down the hill was a trail magic crew serving up yummy food and drinks for us.  perfect! 

I love flowers.  There will be more pictures of them on my camera.  In fact, I've discovered I not only have a 'macro' feature on my camera, but a 'super macro' feature - meaning I might be able to take pictures of amoebas.

Some strange weather/pollution causing these streaky rays in the sky on top of Big Bald.

A typical shelter scene at dawn, although there were a few more people than normal at this one.  I think 25 people ended up sleeping there that night.  The shelter itself only holds eight.  The next night, there were only six of us.
Cool formations just after Newfound Gap in the Smokies.  It seems as though the mist/fog continuously froze on the twiggies through the night as the mighty wind blew.  do you know what this is???

More to come...

Night-time Noises

We've crossed the 300 mile barrier! In fact, Erwin, Tennessee is 339 miles from Springer. It's amazing how time flies when you are having fun! And one thing I will not complain about is that out of the last ten or so days, only one has seen rain...nice change. Not a cloud in the sky today! Or yesterday. or the day before that. or before that. maybe the day before that. dun-dun-duuuuhhh...but the forecast does call for scattered thunderstorms the next week-ish.

I was sick for about 9 days. I had convinced myself it was just allergies, but now I think it was a minor cold floatin' around the trail. Just nasal issues. No sore throat. Some coughing, though, especially in the wee hours of the night - not so good in close shelter or hostel quarters, but what are you gonna do??? People snore all night. So I was just contributing my part to the unpleasant nighttime noises.

But you know what??? I've discovered if enough people are snoring, the different snores sometimes create a pattern, so you can make yourself a snoring song and eventually dose off to a pleasant sleep. There are just so many different types of snores I never even knew existed!

This other guy I met a while back (Dr. Doom) says he intentionally, consciously, knowingly snores louder than the rest and falls asleep faster and sounder than ever before.
hmmmm....

enough about snoring.

So you wanna hear some more cool cheesy trailnames like my own? Here's a list of people I've met. ready...set...go!!!

Turtle, Jazzman, K-Bar, Soundtrack, Blink, Rugged Shark, Highlander, Matchstick, Spoonman, Pineapple, Rainman, Ahab, Nature, Huckleberry Finnegan, Laughing Owl, One Step, Stats, Pellet, Linus Cloudbuster, Scooner, Coyote, Sodfather, Ninja, Wolf Taffy, Kazoo, SpamCan, Ziggy, Shameless Blue Blazer, Truckin, Toothferry, Spring Peeper, Tree Beard, Dartanium, Caveman, Z, Kuru, Zippedy Doo Da, Bones, Trigger, Pink Blaze Nazi, Mr. Pink, Saint Patty, Two Pack, Hobbit, Knickers, Red Tree, Western, Go Gator, Baby Gator, Leon, Guitar Dan, Indiana Jane, Featherfoot, Cruiser Don, Hot Feet, Canoe, Yak, Stud, Leg Stretcher, Up and Adam, Scout, Shorty, Dr. Evil and there's even more that don't have names yet...

I get to go to Asheville this afternoon! My papa is coming for the night from ATL and hangin' out with me. It'll be way fun. And he has a computer and adapter for my camera card (I think)...so I'll be able to post some photos finally! I've got lots of good ones...

until then...

And if your in the south, I hope you're enjoying the beautiful weather!

Veggies in my tummy tonight

Stephanie decided to stay in Hot Springs one more day. The glorious sunnybank inn - owned by Mr. Elmer (not the glue guy) - where she is has convinced her one more day off rest/healing is best. Hopefully her feet won't be so sore tomorrow. Plus, there are just so many new faces she gets to meet. And this place also makes wondrous vegetarian meals for dinner/breakfast, which she enjoys greatly even though she is not a vegetarian. but vegetables are so yummy. she usually just eats pastas by Knorr (formerly Lipton), oatmeals, cheeses, snickers, and cookies...so veggies are always welcome. she did buy an onion for the next couple of meals, just to flavor things up a bit. her momma gave her some cholula hot sauce (but it's not too hot), too - and that stuff is so yummy. she would drink it if she could, but she won't because it might give her a stomach ache...and then some, probably. that wouldn't be such a good scenario out in the woods...or in the non-woods.

I'm done with my town chores - chores here are fun though. They really just consist of taking a shower, doing laundry, eating loads of high calorie food (on purpose - I love it!), buying food/meals/snacks to eat on the trail, finding internet and the using it, calling my parents, and sleeping. Occasionally, I will drink a beer - one will make me almost drunk.

I have allergies, I've concluded. I don't really like allergies, I've also concluded. And I don't like taking medicines either (except everyday, I have been taking what is known as vitamin-I...aka ibuprofin).

the lady is kicking me off the computer. til the next internet source!