Pictures

WTF?

Me tent on my first zero.

Me relaxing on the trail after a long day of hiking through the lowlands.

Shazam, Larb, Hot Pants, Trashcan and Pink Floyd at the 1/2 gallon challenge. Where thru-hikers try to eat 1/2 a gallon of ice cream. I did not try.

Really nice shelter in PA.

The view after a really tough climb. I had to use my hands, WOOP! Palmerton, PA.

Entrance to a church hostel.

El Flaco and myself enjoying the top of Coon mountain.

Me with an angry/confused face on top of a fire tower in New Jersey.

Cool shot of fire tower.

Trail Angels and Trail Magic

On the trail you get frustrated, pissed off or just sad. It is said that once all that negativity reaches a boiling point trail magic appears out of nowhere to help you out.

Trail Magic is food or drink that gets left somewhere on the trail or is given to you at a shelter or a trail head. The provider of said trail magic is a Trail Angel.

I haven't really been that frustrated with the trail, but I have been showered with trail magic.

Some examples:

-At a trail head a triple crowner offered to grill me breakfast, I ate 4 eggs, 2 hash brown patties, 1 burger and 2 biscuits. YUM.

-30 pack of PBR at a shelter. Us 5 polished the 30 pack and I made everybody do a shutgun. Was fun hiking afterwards.

-4 gallons of water on a stretch that had very few streams and was very exposed.

-A cooler full of Pepsi cans, you have no idea how delicious cold fizzy Pepsi is in the middle of nowhere completely unexpected.

In addition to this random Trail Magic I have a dedicated group of people that are my Trail Angels. They supply me with food from home while I'm out here. My appreciation for this is staggering and I bow in front of each and every one of you for doing this for me. It has been a blast opening up these boxes of food.

Night hiking

Yesterday I had to book it in order to be able to go to New York tomorrow and take a zero there. I was hoping to do 22 miles. After 16, I was exhausted and wanted nothing more then to just lay in the grass and take a long nap.

I hung out with a couple of thru-hikers at a lawn until 7, meaning that I would be hiking at least part of the time in the night. After 2 hours of hiking dusk was turning into night and I pulled out my head lamp and went head first into the dark forest. Up until that moment there was enough light to see where I was stepping.

Fear rose up instantly as I approached parts of the forest where it was truly pitch black. It was fascinating to see how many ways I died in my head in that forest.

On the train ride to here I had a really bad case of vertigo and it was my ability to find comfort in my breath that made me snap out of the vertigo and not puke. But I have been meditating on my breath for a long time now and the comfort came from that time investment.

With the comfort of 3 weeks of knowing what the woods looked and felt like I stepped into them. I'm so glad I did because that night was the night that I saw 10 deer. Two of them were not afraid of me in the least, and just kept looking at me while I strolled by, their heads following me the whole way. Even though I have seen 4 bears so far, deer are infinitely more exciting to see for me.

The topping on the night hike cake was a climb that put me over a ridge where a full new RED moon was rising, while hundreds of fireflies left their glow in the dusk.

Hella goosebumps were experienced.

Surprise Visit: Hershey's Chocolate World

The fam that I visited it with. Phlegm in the beautiful shorts, and Gravity to the right. The rest of the fam around.

Zero

Yesterday was 2 weeks since I started hiking in West Virginia. I have covered about 200 miles since, and finished yesterday by almost hiking a marathon, 23.7 miles.

To celebrate I'm doing zero miles on the Appalachian Trail today. I'm eating, interneting and shopping, then I'm slepping for a long time.

In the last few days I have been feeling exhausted and knew that I needed a day like this. I went from feeling off yesterday to feeling lots better already.

It has been interesting to see how excited at the new scenery and change of pace I was, and how quickly that has changed to being the day to day norm. Now I'm enjoying the hike differently then I first did. The biggest challenge is just to stay aware not just of all of your thoughs but also all of the surroundings and people. Fully being present, it's very difficult.

Another thing I have noticed is how much I have been missing the group of people that I fell in synch with in my first week. Them getting off the trail for a couple of days has been a blessing and a curse. Blessing; I'm forced to meet lots of new people, curse; I'm not sure there is going to be anybody to hang out at the shelters at nights.

All in all I'm enjoying my zero and am looking forward to 980 miles that I have left to hike! Woop!

Lyme

Some of you have asked me what I was most afraid of on the trail. I always said ticks, since they carry Lyme's disease and they are as big as a dot on this here i.

Welp my worst fear has come and I have been bitten by a tick. A few days ago I noticed a bulls eye on my left calf. I showed it off to other hikers and they all said "Doctor, NOW!" I decided to hike 17 miles to the next shelter and then get a shuttle out to the urgent care.

At the urgent care I got treated extremelly well. They gave me as much candy as I could carry and two cokes for the trail. The doctor was super awesome, gave me 20 anti-biotic pills to take over 10 days and told me to stay away from lots of direct sunlight. He also said that he gets bitten once a year since he does so much outside work, and goes through the same process. Basically; NO BIG DEAL.

So my worst fear is now with me and I'm feeling just fine!

Here's me chilling with the doc:

FAQ

Jenny wrote an email to me telling me that she is very curious about the trail, and that she had tons of questions but didn't want to overwhelm me. I asked her to write me all the questions she can think of, she did, and since I think most of you are curious about these questions and answers I thought I'd share them on here:

Q. What has it been like?
A. Really nice, quiet through out the day. Simple chores. One goal. Very warm and open people with the same purpose, which makes us bond ridiculously fast.

Q. What has the trail been like, has it been difficult or easy, flat or hilly, lakes, green, muddy?
A. I started in Harpers Ferry, WV. I didn't really see West Virginia except for Harpers Ferry and it is a beautiful little town that seems to have been stuck in the olden times. Next I went through Maryland, which is a lot of up and down and green. Currently I'm in Pennsylvania, which has been pretty rocky, but then again most of the day yesterday I walked on flat ground next to corn fields.

Q. What does it look like and what have you seen, flowers, trees, bears, fish...beautiful?
A. The trail is very green and it is true that most of the time it looks like a green tunnel. There is tons of flora along the way, pretty mushrooms, blueberries, blackberries.
The fauna has been pretty exciting, I saw a Bear's ass while it was running away from me. I saw a deer's butt while it lept 8 feet into the air to get away from me. I also saw a snake with a frog in it's mouth.
The trees have been shorter and different than the huge trees we have in Oregon.

Q. Have you met people along the way? What have they been like? Anyone nice?
A. Yes, I meet people every day. I like most of the people, but some are sweeter and click better with me, so I stick with them. It has been really interesting how I usually hike along during the day but have lunch and dinner with people. I also usually sleep in the shelters (three walled free structures) with the people that I meet.
At the moment I'm sitting at Gravity's aunt's house writing this email on their laptop. I never would have thought that anybody would invite me to their aunt's house after 4 days of knowing me. It's very exciting because it shows just how open people truly are when we all slow down.

Q. How's camping going?
A. I usually use the shelters because I'm too lazy to set up my tent. It's very simple but it keeps me dry and relatively safe. The shelters are sometimes amazing, where the wood is finished and it smells nice, and sometimes run down and really old.

Q. Has it been OK making your own food?
A. I have been receiving food from my family and friends. It has been really exciting to get different stuff from different people, so every night is something different. I like the food making process, even though I'm dead tired after my day of walking it is nice to just laugh and talk with the people at the shelters.
Everybody has been telling me that I will really start getting hungry soon. They say that you get the hiker hunger and nothing can tame it. I did see most of the thru-hikers eat 1/2 gallon of ice cream for the 1/2 gallon ice-cream challenge.

Q. What has it been like going to the towns in between?
A. It has been really nice going to town, you start looking forward to it, because it's different then what you are used to. You also meet other hikers there, and hikers stick together, you have built in friends to whatever town you go. I remember my second night stopping at a campground, all the thru-hikers sat together whereas all the other campers were separate. No thru-hiker really asks the other if they can sit there, they just do.
Also you look forward to FOOOOOOOOOOD. Because real food, fruit and vegetables are so much more appealing when you are hiking 18 miles a day.

I know there are more questions so post them in the comments and I'll try to answer them as they come.

LARB

I remember a long time ago me and a friend were talking about Thai dishes and he says one of the funniest words in existence: LARB.

I almost spit-took and laughed for quite a while. That word is so ridiculous sounding and sounds almost like lard, but better. We went out that day and bought a LARD, it tasted horrible.

One of the big stressers for me has been the topic of trail names. On the AT fellow hikers introduce themselves and call you by your trail name. But since all of these thru-hikers started at least two months ago they all had one. Here I come, in the middle of the trail and I don't even have a trail name. VERY STRESSFUL.

Two days ago I was at the Ironmaster's Hostel in Gardners, PA. I was sharing a room with the Booty Cluuuub, the thru-hikers that I have been hiking with for the past 4 days, their trail-names are Phlegm, Gravity, Pixel and Shazam. We were in the dining room eating and playing Scrabble.

The subject of funny words came up and I said "one of the funniest words that I know is LARB. I could say it all day; LARB LARB LARB LARB" While I was shaking my head back and forth and yelling LARB, Phlegm points at me and says "TRAIL NAME!!"

And thus LARB is born. I always thought my trail-name was going to me something bad ass, like Gravity or Lightning. But who am I kidding, LARB is pretty much the perfect name for me.

So now when somebody asks me for my name I say LARB. It's pretty weird.

Happiness

Four days ago I woke up, folded up my sleeping bag liner, rolled up my sleeping bag and pad, ate some oatmeal and other snacks, brushed my teeth, pooped, packed up the rest of my stuff and started hiking.

For the next four hours I sang song after song that came to me with a huge grin on my face. I don't remember the last time feeling that much contentment in the world.

I am on a really huge adventure. I'm making friends daily. Have family and friends that are extremely loving and supportive.

Everything was just how it was and I accepted every single part of my reality. Its amazing how much happiness poured out of me. I suspect that the happiness, is more tied to my acknowledgement and acceptance of the world, rather than the situation that I'm in.

I think that if I acknowledged and accepted all the things that are going on in my real life, without waiting for adventures like this, I would be a more content/happy person.

I know that I was truly happy because it was only after the second song that I realized how happy I was. It poured more out of my body then my head, its hard to describe.

But as with ALL things, my happiness ceases and I was grumpy later that night.

I'm currently close to Duncannon, PA, tomorrow Ill be in town and i will have Internet on a computer. This post was written on Pixels smart phone. Everybody thank Pixel please.