Wednesday, April 27, 2011

zero days are good for the soul

so i hope everybody back home in mississippi, alabama, and tennessee is okay! i've seen some of the footage of the rough weather that y'all are having. we're getting some of that tonight, so swayze and i are staying off the trail until tomorrow morning. my budget didn't account for tornados.

yesterday was awesome. :) we had a tiny hike into a parking lot that was roughly eleven miles from the town that i was supposed to resupply in. i had planned on maybe getting to the town early, resupplying, and then getting a ride back to the trail to camp last night, but we had absolutely no cell phone reception when we got to the parking lot. boo that, haha. so a guy that i've met on the trail and i started walking into town. we had just enough cell phone reception to send and receive texts, but not make phone calls, so he sent his mama a text message and she called the hotel that provided shuttle services into town. they came to pick us up, and i'll be danged if it wasn't miss janet that was driving the bus!!! :) that might not mean a lot to y'all, but i was starstruck! hahaha... miss janet is pretty much famous on the AT and whiteblaze. when one of the guys got dropped off at the place he was staying, he was like, "bye miss janet!" and i was like, "are you THE miss janet?" i got her autograph and a picture with her and she even gave swayze dog treats! :) she also fussed at us about how we were going about hitchhiking the whole wrong way. she said the three rules of hitchhiking are:

1) stop walking. if you're walking, that means you're okay and you don't need help.
2) get to a place where people can pull over. even if they want to, if they can't get to you, you're screwed.
3) smile and act happy. no one wants to pick up a freak.

also! it turns out that the people who gave us the lemon cookies and root beer the other day is actually a guy named taylor who is slackpacking the whole way to maine and his wife is meeting him at trailheads and driving him to an rv every night. they are SO nice! he came and found us at the hotel last night and drove me to the vet clinic that was three miles up the road so i could get swayze some tick medicine and then took me to mcdonalds. it might not've been a homemade or five guys burger, but i finally got that cheeseburger and sweet tea. :) he's also offered to pick us up in the morning to drive us to the trailhead.

and today has been wonderful. zero days, man. i think it's just what i've needed. granted, i probably shouldn't take many in towns because towns are expensive, but even swayze seems to feel better. i've had a nap and two hot showers within the last twenty-four hours. it kind of sucks because almost all day today the weather was pretty (it's starting to look pretty rough here now), and in the back of my mind i was thinking the whole time, "man. you're not getting any miles in today. you should be hiking. what're you doing?" but hopefully i'll feel better in the long run for doing it. i've heard it said, "start out slow, and then go slower." well... you can't get much slower than 0.

and for those of y'all who've been asking... i will let y'all know where i'll be soon, i promise! (just so y'all know.. i will only be posting WHEN i will be places on facebook and only my friends will be able to see it... just to deter any creepers.) i will say that my list has changed... i'm no longer asking for ground coffee. that was dumb. i don't feel like waking up in the morning and boiling water and filtering coffee. i'm slow enough as it is at breaking camp. if the whole wide world depended on me to break camp in less than fifteen minutes, we'd all be screwed. i've not built a fire since i started, so i no longer need dryer lint, hahaha. and i think i hate peanut butter now so i've taken that off the list. (nutella is still a go, though. ;D) snickers are always welcome in any shape or size. they're pretty much payment between hikers. ("i'll trade you a couple of snickers for some hot water for my oatmeal.") but i think i've sworn off oatmeal, too, so i don't need any of that.

thank y'all so much for all y'all's support thus far. i love y'all and miss y'all. :)

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