Half-way done!

I've officially made it past the official half-way point. YES!!! And I did it with giardia - I bet you're impressed, huh? Well, I'm pretty certain it was the nasty little critter. I had the typical symptoms - lack of appetite, lack of energy, lots of burping (and I mean LOTS), and lots of yucky doo-doo...the runny kind. So my half-way experience didn't come along with the best of health, but I took some flagyl and am so far clear of the previous mentioned symptoms! excellent!

I'm in Duncannon, PA now and have some family visiting time coming up this Friday...awesome!

Pictures soon!

1013 miles down!!!!!!

I've walked 1000+ miles - weird, huh? perhaps even insane. I'm in Harper's Ferry, WV (finally we are out of Virginia!), so I still have another 1000+ miles to hike, but I'm ok with that cause I'd rather be hiking than working - of course, I am working my butt off - quite literally - just not gettin' paid to do it...and that's ok for now.

Anyway, more later - I've gotta eat... and hopefully keep the food down - something funky's going on inside my intestines. I hope it's not giarardia. I hope it's just the greasy fries and onion rings I ate yesterday with my 1/3 lb cheeseburger. yucky.

You never know what's lurking in the shelters...

Journey, Pyrofly and I were sitting in the shelter enjoying an afternoon snack and break at BlackRock Hut (sleeping shelters in Shenandoah NP are called huts, and day-use picnic gazebo-esque structures are called shelters...just to confuse us) and a friendly creature decides to join us. While we weren't rude to the creature, we certainly weren't friendly, either. In fact, it was nearly instantly upon seeing the creature - a copperhead snake - that we jumped away from it and snapped a zillion photos from a distance while politely and patiently waiting for it to find another resting spot out in the woods.


The snake is finally leaving the shelter. Snakes are fascinating creatures - imagine the abs humans would have if we had to crawl around on out stomachs all day to get around. Truly fascinating to watch these things move...

Shenandoah NP

Aaaahhhh!!!! A rattlesnake on the trail! This thing scared the living sheets out of me...first rattler on the trail. I saw my first bear, too. A baby being treed up a tree - because I'm a scary, feisty not-so-sure what you're gonna do creature - to a bear...
The next three photos are of beautiful sunsetting views from Passamoquoddy Trail - a blue blazed trail from the AT - although we did see remnants of old white blazes, so we were perhaps on the original AT.

Good ol' Appalachia. Gotta give it to the CCC as well for all the hard work they put into building so much of the trail. Their workmanship is incredible.

And this is from a great viewpoint in the Shenandoah's somewhere - weather here has been phenomenal. NO RAIN!!! Cool temps at the higher elevations. Nice sunny breezes. phenomenal. plain and simple.

Trail Magic...

Photo explanations coming soon...

Plant life using the oh so wonderful super-macro!!!

Cool water droplet on a plant after a rainy morning...and for the record, the rain won't stop. We have had sunny days scattered here and there, at least. But it's been wet enough that my pack is growing/smells like mildew. grody.
Little spider on a leaf...

Pretty butterfly on a yellow flowering plant...way to go super-macro!!

Pink Lady Slipper

Purple Flower

I'm obsessed and in love with my super-macro feature...too bad I can't figure out how to turn the sideways photos right side up in blogspot so you're just gonna have to turn your head sideways to see some of them correctly - like the baby spider and the pink lady slipper.

Trail photo, Roan Mtn Shelter, Overmountain Shelter, Dad @ The Biltmore in Ashland, Horses endorsing McDonald's in Erwin

This is me on top of Roan Mountain at the shelter with close to the same name - also the highest shelter on the AT - tops 6,000 feet. It was a hefty climb to the top - and I knew it would be so I decided to count how many steps it would take to get to the top. 10,800 steps. yup, that's just about right.

View from Overmountain Shelter - sadly enough, I did not take a picture of the shelter which is an ancient barn (ancient by US standards - perhaps 100 years old???).

My pops at The Biltmore Estate...I took a little side vacation to Asheville, NC from Erwin, TN for a break/visit. Thanks for the yummy sushi and cozy bed!!

Yes, the horsies are endorsing McDonald's - Just like cows endorse Chick-fil-A..."Eat More Beef" the horses say.