Reflections

These are just some reflections on the trail, particularly as it relates to some of the interesting people that I have found so far. What I'm finding is that one of the most interesting things on the trail is visiting with the amazingly diverse people. On my first day, as I got off at Marta <sp?> in Atlanta to get picked up on the shuttle, I bumped into a woman by the name of Gypsy Girl. This was a 62-year-old Australian that had started the AT last year. And about two weeks into her hike, ended up breaking her leg. She stayed I think in Franklin, North Carolina for six weeks to have her leg recover, and then she went on the trail again and made it all the way to Mount Washington, but her Visa ran out. So she's back again this year to start all over, because she didn't get it done last year. So that was my first introduction to someone that was planning on doing the hike this year. My second introduction was a New Zealand woman named Karen, who seemed to be an avid hiker, has hiked all around New Zealand and ended up wanting to do the AT, so she's here to do the AT. My third introduction was with a guy by the name of Freefall, who lives in Portland, Oregon, and he has done the AT and the PCT, and the continental divide hike, and he's planning on just knocking out a quick three weeks because he's headed back to Sacramento and hoping that he can get a job with the PCT organization. So that was a really first great experience meeting those three people. We went to the hiker hostel and met some additional AT wannabes. There's a huge washout of rain the night before. There was three inches of rain on the trail, so there's a lot of people that ended up at the hiker hostel off the trail drying out. There's two individuals, two characters let's say that I would not want to meet on the side of the street that were from Louisiana and had all sorts of piercings and had barely enough teeth to take down a meal. And I've seen them a couple times off the trail. They're kind of working their way slowly through it. But they are a real mess and a real interesting group. Met Comanche on the trail first day, same age as I am. And just something that he has aspired to do for a long time. So we hiked together for a while. Hooked up with Luke. I've mentioned Luke in my trail blog already. But Luke and I bumped into a mother/daughter team and you could tell they definitely were not experienced hikers, had way too much gear, and had packed it the exact opposite way you should. As Luke started talking to them and giving them a little advice, discovered that they had been on the trail for one and a half weeks. Now this was day two for me, and they had been on the trail for one and a half weeks working their way. I've got say perseverance I guess. But they keep working at it. And then the last interesting character <Lost Signal>. I think that's -- I'll have to tell you about it later because I'm running out of space.

Dictation made on 3/16/2011 10:00 AM EST.