4/26/2023 Wednesday I’d call it a lazy day, but it’s not lazy to stop and rest for as long as you need (always assuming there’s nothing scary chasing you). It is in fact quite prudent to do so. So I had a prudent day, extremely prudent. Downright circumspect! Continue reading

4/25/2023 Tuesday Ben cooked regular-colored eggs and ham for all of us for breakfast and we headed out for another signature slackpacking folly. This one is a tough because there’s no feasible exit point between the McAfee Knob trailhead and the spot where the trail enters Daleville, some 20 miles later. It’s 20 or nothing! Continue reading

4/23/2023 Sunday We weren’t at the bottom of the creek valley, but we were close enough for a cool, cool morning. Today we will leave the 600s, a threshold Wedge has been eager to achieve. Continue reading

4/22/2023 Saturday The rain came just as I laid down to sleep in my tent at Pickle Branch Shelter area this morning, after hiking through the night to avoid said rain. It’s clammy and moist down here. I am so glad not to be hiking in this. Continue reading

4/21/2023 Friday The guy with the long silver hair, the luscious silver hair, is called Witcher. It’s a good trail name. He is no Geralt, that’s for sure, but those locks! As I gazed upon them with awe, I heard my mother’s voice again: “if you want soft hair, wash it with Palmolive and then… Continue reading

4/20/2023 Thursday This section of the is AT tougher than advertised. The conditions right now are also a challenge. We’ve got 80 degree highs and no shade. It’s much like walking through a burn scar, only there’s too much brush to use an umbrella effectively. It was a mostly miserable day. Continue reading

4/17/2023 Monday The “safari” tent was a bit cold, but Wedge and I agreed it was worth it. We took in the mountain views from our little covered deck. The breakfast bell rang at eight, but by then I had already eaten and mostly packed up. Wedge went down to the main house (our tent… Continue reading

4/16/2023 Sunday I knew there was weather coming. When the AT broke my body in 2021, the healed injury left me with an “old” foot that can sense bad weather, or so I tell myself. The light throbbing I felt this morning and a bit in the afternoon had me worried that we were in… Continue reading

4/15/2023 Saturday Today I heard a respectable southern woman (the owner of the hostel) speak the following phrase with no irony or awkwardness at all: “here’s your dinner, Hot Legs.” Continue reading

4/14/2023 Friday We woke to see rains outside our motel window. We delayed leaving until shortly before nine, when it tapered off. The shuttler had barely charged us anything last night and said that we could just call him whenever we wanted to depart this morning because he only lives 15 minutes away. Continue reading

4/13/2023 Thursday One last breakfast at the Quarter Way Inn! Fried eggs with “everything bagel” seasoning. Amazing sausage (patties this time), pancakes, yogurt with homemade granola, cornbread, and fruit salad. We headed back up to VA-623 in Tina’s SUV with Hazelnut riding along. We resumed heading north. I started in minimal layers. We finished that… Continue reading

4/12/2023 Wednesday Are you really gonna make us leave this place? That’s the question my body asked me. Later I asked Wedge the same question over baked eggs, spicy pimento and cheese grits, some kind of flaky tart with sour cream and jam, and I can’t remember what else. I did the math on our… Continue reading

4/11/2023 Tuesday Let us call today a mistake of “hopeful math,” a failure to calculate time and mileage to see the obvious until the die had been cast. Continue reading

“When I’m lost with myself I see lions,lying golden on beaches of white. I see men with their boats in the weather. Carry me as I drift in the night”-San Fermin (“Methuselah”) 4/10/2023 Monday Day 55 Forget yesterday. Forget our chilling encounter. Everything changed in Eveningland Meadow. Again. Continue reading

4/9/2023 Sunday Wedge and I are not in a good situation as I’m writing this. We’re staying in the old schoolhouse and something’s wrong. Continue reading

4/8/2023 Saturday I slept like a little lamb in my cozy bunk! It was actually too warm! Everyone around here has been rendered a little cold-wary, a little rain-shy, by this latest batch of cold wet weather. Continue reading

4/7/2023 Friday We struck our tents precisely as the rains began. I would have loved to hike a day in the 40s if it had been dry. But it wasn’t dry. Continue reading