June 7th, 2011
Reached the official halfway marker today for 2011 at 1090.5 miles. At Pine Grove Furnace State Park I attempted the half way half gallon of ice-cream challenge, but it seems my non starved stomach is not up to putting away as many calories as it used to on these events and I was only able to get through a quart. I always seem to overestimate how much distance I am going to be able to cover over a given time long term. After slackpacking a few days I was ready to cut my goal from getting to CT to just finishing PA. Now after fullpacking for two days my feet may have other plans as I have developed some of the grossest caked blisters I have ever seen. Maybe there was more to liner socks than I thought.
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June 4th, 2011
Still slacking, and just steps south of the Mason Dixon line. The trail through MD was mostly flat, but my legs still hate me. I find myself reevaluating both my trail goals for this round and my life goals. What would you do if Ira Flatow gave you a blank check?
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June 1st, 2011
Bit of a late start, but I’m getting on the trail today. Going to slack pack for a bit till my legs get going again. After my last snafu in Harpers Ferry I finally got my photo taken and registered with the ATC. Not sure how I feel about the blue section hiker categorization but oh well. It sure is hot out, but they said it’s been raining a lot too (ugh) so the water is running goof in PA. I must say I am a bit apprehensive about all this, I wonder what my headspace will be like.
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June 6th, 2009
“Have we reached the end?” asked Pooh.
“I suppose we have… And yet”
“Yes Piglet?”
“It is also the beginning”
My last day of hiking was rediculously difficult. It rained (naturally), I got horribly lost within 2 miles of the ATC HQ, had a strange run in with a homeless guy, and got closed out of every hotel in town. Now I am on a train back to Boston, and while my hiking days are over for this year I have found for the first time that I really do want to be on the trail.
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June 4th, 2009
Watching the clouds roll around the Blackburn AT center. I forgot to mention the other day that I passed both the National Zoological Site and Mt. Weathertop, two creepy federal government institutions. The NZS is where they try to breed endangered animals. It’s thousands of acres big and holds some of the most dangerous animals in the world, namely big cats. But you can’t see any animals from the trail even though it runs along one of the zoo’s side fences for over a mile. What’s creepy is that the fence is remarkably low, has several holes, and easy to open gates. If you didn’t know what it was you’d think you were looking at something out of the x-files. Mt. Weathertop is the first emergency bunker outside of DC for all the politicians. Suppsedly you can access it through a series of tunnels. It was a top secret site until a place crashed on the property and the media swarmed the place. Our theory is that between the two the government is breeding a race of gorilla warriors…
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June 3rd, 2009
Man oh man, only 19 miles to go. Still haven’t decided if I’m going to make it in one push or stretch it out. About half way through the roller coaster now. The past two days have been threatening thunderstorms but haven’t rained. The humidity is stiffling and sweat just beads on my skin and drips off as if it were raining. But I don’t mind. The trails been exilherating out of the shennies. For instance, Early Bear was bit by a rabid skunk at 5:30 this morning after it attacked and sprayed Angry Beaver and Prairie Dog. It chased them over a mile down the trail despite being hit by rocks, sticks, and pepper sprayed in the face. It finally stopped following them when Early Bear bludgeoned it to death with his hiking staff. Weird! I remember smelling skunk…
The retelling of Early Bear vs. Skunk at Bear's Den
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June 1st, 2009
Bear count for the Shennies: 3. One in a tree, one in the bushes, one running across the trail. All cubs, no moms.
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June 1st, 2009
Towards the end of Shennies we did two challenges back to back. Challenges are a way for bored hikers to amuse themselves. Not to say we were bored; Virginia has actualy been pretty cool despite white Bill Bryson says. The most famous challenge is the four state challenge where people go 44 miles out of VA, through WV MD, and into PA in one day. But we didn’t do that one. We did the dollar menu challenge and the 12 mile challenge. The dollar menu challenge involves eating one of everything on the dollar menu at McDonalds, namely a McDouble, McChicken, small salad, 3 cookies, 2 apple pies, small soda, extra large sweat tea, 4 piece nuggets, sundae, parfait, and small fries totally around 2500 calories. It took us half an hour. Peachy keen threw up almost immediately after and I turned grey. The sweet tea did us in for sure. Since we were in Luray we also got a 24 rack of beer for the 12 mile challenge, which is just drinking a beer every mile. It sounds a lot crazier than it really is. After 6 beers I felt a little drunk, then we had a siesta and the back 6 just felt gross. Neither of us got sick, and didn’t get to the shelter trashed like we had hoped, but were definitely dehydrated and cranky.
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Peachy Keen
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Me
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Ate it!
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Trash
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Fun with temporary tattoos
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Drank it!
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June 1st, 2009
Towards the end of Shennies we did two challenges back to back. Challenges are a way for bored hikers to amuse themselves. Not to say we were bored; Virginia has actualy been pretty cool despite white Bill Bryson says. The most famous challenge is the four state challenge where people go 44 miles out of VA, through WV MD, and into PA in one day. But we didn’t do that one. We did the dollar menu challenge and the 12 mile challenge. The dollar menu challenge involves eating one of everything on the dollar menu at McDonalds, namely a McDouble, McChicken, small salad, 3 cookies, 2 apple pies, small soda, extra large sweat tea, 4 piece nuggets, sundae, parfait, and small fries totally around 2500 calories. It took us half an hour. Peachy keen threw up almost immediately after and I turned grey. The sweet tea did us in for sure. Since we were in Luray we also got a 24 rack of beer for the 12 mile challenge, which is just drinking a beer every mile. It sounds a lot crazier than it really is. After 6 beers I felt a little drunk, then we had a siesta and the back 6 just felt gross. Neither of us got sick, and didn’t get to the shelter trashed like we had hoped, but were definitely dehydrated and cranky.
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May 22nd, 2009
Yesterday I was going to write a post like this:
After listening to Rammstein, Mindless Self Indulgence, and The Bloodhound Gang all day I was ready to fuck a goat, kill it, and then fuck it again. Jesus. Good thing I made it the 18.5 miles into town and got away from the farms…
But then I hitched a ride into town.
I was picked up by four guys and a woman in a beat up suv who had three sets of teeth between the five of them. During the 3.5 mile ride down the hill they told be about the local Mexican trailer park whore house and gave me the phone number of the village slut making the goat somewhat unnecessary. Umm WTF mates?
Besides that the hostel was amazing. I’m telling you these church know how to run a place so much nicer than other people, except for Miss Jannett of course.
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