Back when we were getting a monthly delivery for Hardon Himstedt (I’m sure the reason the mailman got a hernia was from laughing so hard every month), I was always the first one home every day to check the mail. I, strategically, never brought in the mail. This is in the day of plain brown wrappers which were just magazine sleeves, well before shrink wrapped plastic covers. If Hardon had a delivery, this piece of mail did make it into the house. About 5 days later, my dad would complain at the dinner table that all the other guys at work had received their magazines a week ago and he was going to call the post office if it didn’t show up soon. Miracle of miracles, the magazine was always delivered the next day.
This had to be in the late 70’s because the only thing I remember from those magazines was an article where Jimmy Carter admitted to lusting after women in his heart—well before cigars and Bill Clinton made it into the White House. Oh, and staples. A few years later when I started my personal investigations, I was relieved to discover that women didn’t have staples in their stomachs (also before the days of belly button piercings). There’s absolutely no connection to this memory and our current hike on the AT other than I don’t drown out my inner voice while walking every day, so I am able to dig up some fond memories.
Last night was cold. Maybe we sent our winter gear home too soon after all. There was only one other person in the shelter with us, a German from Munich going by the name of Fire Beast (which translates as Party Animal). There were another 5 people tenting around the shelter. With all these people around, who do you think was the last to leave the shelter? Who guessed party animal? Wrong! Bunny’s back. It was us.
Not too long after we started on our way, we ran into a couple of guys that were sobo coming off of the Allegheny Trail. Robert and Chris from the northeast, but Robert has been transplanted to Pearisburg. We stopped and talked with them for quite a bit. We tried to convince them to quit their jobs and go hiking full time (especially when we discovered Robert was a pharmacist). Every thru-hiker could benefit from a pharmacist companion with questionable ethics. Unfortunately, Robert seems to hold himself to unquestionable standards. I hope we don’t have to resort to “self medicating” as so many seem to on the trail.
While in town, I kept seeing “stop the pipeline’ signs in people’s windows. I thought “give it a rest, the Keystone is a done deal—we’ve even had a spill already.” It wasn’t until we walked a couple more miles that I finally pieced together that there is a natural gas pipeline going in that is going to cross the AT. Generally speaking, I’m not against pipelines. I’m against the companies putting them in that aren’t held accountable when the pipelines fail. I’m all for public castration of every CEO, executive board member, and politician that support the pipeline and then run to the US government for clean up assistance. OK, maybe public castration is a bit extreme, but I do want to see them ball-less if they expect everyone else to clean up their mess while they pocket millions. On certain issues, I can be very inflexible.
There was one protestor standing on the trail talking to people. I shared my views (minus the castration method of compliance). I was expecting a little bit more energy in the protest, but, apparently, there are a few people peacefully sitting in trees. What bothered me most was that the AT was chewed up for about a quarter mile from all the four-wheeler tracks leading to the protest site. I accept that there has to be a few scars along the trail from civilization. There are power lines that cross and roads, I can deal with that. It’s still amazing that we have over 2000 miles of relative wilderness so close to the eastern population centers.
Even with the cold of last night, we noticed much more green today even at elevation. There were several small flowers out and lots of birds singing, but still no blooming rhododendrons. My biggest fear is that we will have weather just like Missouri—5 months and 28 days of winter with 3 days of spring sandwiched between the sweltering heat of summer. Ticks are just around the corner.
How long did we manage to stick to my new 7 day plan to get to Daleville? One day! We ended up cutting 4 miles off of my day 2 plan. Maybe we’ll be able to put in an 18 mile day tomorrow to make up the difference. When we got to Pine Swamp Branch Shelter, there were already people inside and a tent set up outside. This shelter was shut down last year because of gypsy moth infestation which killed all the big trees around it. I know someone was killed by a falling tree at a shelter last year and I just assume this is the place.
Bunny decided she wanted to live on the edge. She said we should tent tonight. Of course, she’s not worried, the dead trees are called “widow makers.” I checked the area carefully and only noticed two dead trees in the area—one already had a tent set up beneath it and the other had a hammock tied to it. As long as we stay away from these guys, we should be fine.
EFG