Misc. thoughts

1. The first one is kind of the status of my blisters. Again, I've never had blisters before, but unfortunately I got them in the first couple of days of the trip and they're on the inside of my ankles, which is kind of an odd spot. They ended up growing to about a silver dollar size, so they're very very large and kind of gross looking, but they didn't hurt at all. Thought it was okay to kind of continue on and I think that that has worked out pretty well. They are healing and getting better, but I think one of the marvels of the world is duct tape. Duct tape can solve, I think, most of the world's problems. What I've been able to do is simply duct tape my feet, so put a little bit of moleskin on the blisters and then I've duct taped, wrapped around a couple of times around my feet to keep the moleskin in place and it's worked fantastic. The last day has given me the opportunity to kind of air them out and they're looking pretty good, so that's kind of the status of my blisters. I know that's kind of a gross topic, but thought I'd give you an update on that. I don't think they will be slowing me down at this point.

2. Another topic is trail news. Kind of interesting to see how news goes up and down the trail.   For example, we would hear bits and pieces about the tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan from people as they hopped on and off the trail. Obviously very tragic, but it's also in a way so disconnected from our focus here on the trail. I'm kind of taking one step at a time in the wilderness. It's hard to connect with it, but it is also interesting to hear what's going on, and of course very very sad.

3. The other topic that's been along the trail, in terms of spreading information about, is state of Wisconsin. Now that's kind of waned a little bit, but at the beginning of the trail it was kind of interesting to hear everybody talking about it without them knowing I'm from Wisconsin. Of course everybody seemed to have very strong views of it. Most are probably on the more liberal side, and didn't really have a great affinity to Scott Walker and what he was trying to accomplish. Those were kind of the topics on the trail in terms of trail news. The other news that goes back and forth on the trail is just who's doing what on the trail and who to avoid and who to try to connect with. I've mentioned Irish Andy before. He started with Andy, he became Irish Andy, and now his trail name seems to be settling into Malarky. He's a guy that everybody was trying to stay with for St. Patt's day so they could partake of his wonderful Whiskey that he hauled on the trail with him. Unfortunately he got ahead of me and I <Lost Signal>

Dictation made on 3/22/2011 7:51 AM EST.