Project Eveningland

2/20/2023 Monday

I want to talk about Bill’s last name for a second. I won’t use it for privacy’s sake, but it starts with a Z and is very Slavic. It’s perfect but if I were commenting on a screenplay I’d say it’s too on the nose to be plausible for a retired cop w a Jersey accent. Not believable, I’d write. He sounds like the kind of character who’s “one day from retirement” only he already is, thank god, or the script would have to kill him in a shootout.

The easiest miles in GA lay ahead. It’s an old railroad grade that sort of swoops gently through the forest with the mildest of slopes. It’s a trap. It lulled me into complacency last time and then slammed me into the rocky embrace of Blue Mountain, like a soft nut against the snaggletooth jaw of a cackling witch. So, understandably, I felt cautious and tried to impart the danger to Mitch and Bill, the former being skeptical and lured by the siren call of big miles. His girlfriend agrees with me, he says. I’m gonna quit talking about it and let him do his own thing. Don’t want to be a mother hen but all those people who warn you that the trail will shred your body if you go too fast aren’t just whistling Dixie. I AM THE LORAX I SPEAK FOR YOUR KNEES!

Note to self: remind Jim not to film people until AFTER they explicitly agree. Don’t do it and then ask forgiveness or you might film yourself getting punched in the face.

The Stone Cold Mouse Killaz were headed for the old Cheese Factory site. There is no cheese there, I kept saying. Meanwhile Mitch took to calling it the Cheesecake Factory Site. Bill later referred to it as the Cheesesteak Factory. Oy vey.

Bit of a low day. Gray skies. Empty forests. I can sense something. A little of the excitement has waned and the work ahead is beginning to sink in. I am too tired to write much more.

I’m gonna have a long deep sleep at the Cheese Factory Site. (Again, there is no cheese or any sign of a factory. It’s a gorgeous forest ridge). Tomorrow’ll be a lovely easy day. Less than ten miles. Then a nearo into Hiawassee followed by a zero. Gonna be great.