Project Eveningland

3/25/2023 Saturday

A hearty breakfast can really smooth things over. A world-class, southern, gourmet breakfast for $12, on the other hand, can lead to full and total amnesty for a negative hostel experience. There was egg soufflé, potato casserole (four inches deep, unbelievably creamy, perfectly soft shredded potatoes all the way through), spicy kielbasa, regular sausage well done, biscuits & gravy, a fresh strudel with cream cheese and soft red cherries, tomato pie, French toast with fresh local honey and homemade jams, and lots of other stuff. It tasted like the food I imagine they’d serve in the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

I ate two huge plates. Hide, Wedge, L&F and I sat at a fussy little table with Gummy Bear (a funny smart yinzer who seems real mellow), Stats (a 22 year old from Connecticut who just graduated from college and was carrying a 50 pound pack), and a father-and-daughter pair.

We all fell silent as we dug into dish after dish. It was a kind of shared euphoria. I felt sheepish about my behavior the previous night. The truth is I couldn’t help it. I was doing my very best but still behaving like a real bitch. Mega Trail Karen, they’ll call me. I told them that they had met my alter ego, Sassyfras, about whom Hide already knew. Hide (real name Lane) said they liked that I could actually “identify” as Sassyfras in a given moment. I don’t know what to think—it makes me feel overexposed. I remind myself that I would forgive the same in a friend, and I’m a judgmental dick.

L&F had arranged another backward slackpack—15 miles returning to Mountain Harbor today. While they were out hiking, he let me occupy his fancy room in the main house (a bed and breakfast room instead of a hostel bunk) so I could rest while waiting for my parents. I blew up my mattress and fell asleep for three hours on the floor. I woke five minutes or so before Mom called to say they’d arrived.

We drove eight miles to the AirBnB, then decided to drive back to the grocery store since we still had an hour to kill before checkin. They were out of corn starch (Mom had pre-prepared some chicken and broth—to be made into gravy and served over rice). But we got everything we needed for a meatloaf and lots of other stuff. I grabbed a mix for Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits. And a pineapple and some kiwi.

We got into the rental, which is absolutely gorgeous and immaculate. What evils must be summoned to create a washing machine run by a supercomputer that detects what kind of clothes are in it and lets you watch the whole process through a glass lid? I wonder, I wonder. I think HP Lovecraft might have known.

I ate all day. I inventoried gear and made shopping lists. I told Mom and Dad about many aspects of the trail that it just isn’t possible to share here. I got my new shoes! Holy shit, look at them compared to the old ones! See picture below. Observing the wear patterns helps me understand how worn uppers (but intact tread) could lead to the problems I’ve been having. I waited too long.

I’ll try to sleep in tomorrow. Shopping and eating will be the main tasks.

I left the trail with my parents at mile 395. This is the same spot where I first got off with the injury in 2021. The next five miles of the trail (which I’ll rehike on Monday when my parents drop me off there) were the setting for the end of the first leg of my 2021 hike. That’s a complicated way to say that these are some of the saddest miles for me. They’re gentle miles but I was so broken they made me cry. Trip and I parted here—we hugged and wept. Two men having a good cry in the woods.

So this time round I have a goal for myself: make the miles feel joyful. Remind myself that, at least in this instance, there was a chance to try again and get it right.

There’s something else I’ve been thinking about from the first hike that I’ll share. During that first leg of the 2021 hike, there was a song I listened to which posed three unanswered questions:

1. What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart?

2. How can a man like me remain in the light?

3. If life is really as short as they say, then why are the nights so long?

Those questions—and the lovely tune to which they were set—were a big part of the soundtrack for that first journey. I returned to the trail six weeks later, after much painful and expensive medical care and in a custom brace, and hiked about four hundred more miles. It was so worth it, but it wasn’t the same. The brace separated me from other hikers. In retrospect I see that the brace was a visible sign of injury, that thing which everyone here fears, and they stayed away like it was contagious.

At some point on that second leg the answers to the questions from the song came to me. Or I think they did. Here they are in case they’re useful. The song is called “Chinese Translation” by M. Ward.

1. Reassemble them.

2. Try.

3. Because a human life is often feast or famine.