One is the Loneliest Number

So here I am, first post after getting back on the trail after my 4-day visit with parents.  It was tough getting on the trail and knowing that 4 days worth of trail time has passed me by.  It was as though I just fell asleep for 4 days and I woke up lost.  I got to a hut in the shenandoahs with an odd section hiker there on the first night, and then woke up at 5:30 the next morning.  I had some great adventures that day, including hundreds of black raspberries, a rattle snake all angry at me, getting yummy food handouts from tourists (without asking for it! - that's the key), having a waiter even at a "wayside" grill off the Skyline drive (for tourists, primarily), getting absolutely soaked in a downpour and stopping afterwards to wring out my clothes on this cold windy cliff face (and taking some cool pictures up there too), seeing my first baby doe and my first buck (about 4-pointed) -- and this was all on my first 28 mile day!

I ended that big day with great company, some friendly hikers who helped me out when I got sick, Bullwinkle and Fishstick - also the twins, friends of theirs, Turd Nugget and Bowlcut.  They had 3 dogs, so that always kept things interesting too.  I did enjoy hiking with them for one day, but it was their group, and I could tell that I didn't really fit into it so much.  When they went into Front Royal the next day I didn't follow - I wasn't planning on going in there anyway.  The day after that I hiked the entire day without seeing a thru-hiker - that happened for the first time this trip.  I couldn't find any space to put up my tent (reasonably put it up - I could have managed but it'd be awkward) so I just set down my sleeping arrangements and went to sleep in the forest.  Oh, I also saw my first real good view of a bear on this trip just 2 miles before that!

I've been doing a lot of my own thing, including eating hundreds and hundreds more of raspberries, usually red, and writing and drawing about them in the registers.  It is really cool finding free food (and fresh fruits) growing ripe and ready for you near the trail!  It is fun doing things on my own and really being alone out here, but I'm talking to myself, and constantly thinking "oh I can't wait to tell..." before I realize I'll have no one to relate my day's adventures to.  Section hikers don't count.  Some of them are really cool, but most are clueless or pretentious (I would only call myself a backpacker after these several hundred miles of backpacking.  They would call themselves backpacker after several years' subscription to Backpacker magazine) and they just try to talk the talk with you, and honestly I'm tired of talking about the advantages and disadvantages of tarp tents or denatured alcohol.  I want to talk about something real, with my friends.

So a few cool people I had met are only a couple days ahead now.  Coldylocks is still 4 days ahead, but I suspect she'll only be 2 days ahead after Harper's Ferry.  It would be nice to see her again, but I think the plan is to practice going place to place more alone - that was both of our plans from the beginning, and now it almost seems like we started together, like some of these couples who share a tent and stove and such.  That was never our idea.  I would like to get a few days closer up to people just to be *around* some other people at least sometimes.  Apparently there were like 12 other people at the place where I am now, when she was here.  I stayed with a day hiker and an odd section hiker (Oh, Jan, a thru-hiker was here for a bit too).  A day alone is great, and even walking alone all day most every day is fine so long as there are people to be social with around breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

So that is why I am finishing this disjointed entry and getting hiking!  I am thinking about averaging 18 miles a day over the next week.  The terrain will be fine and I am in great health and shape now, that I can hike that far and *easily* have leisure time, take pictures, look around, go up observation towers, etc.  I hope to write again in Harper's Ferry (tomorrow), or it might be a little while after otherwise.

- Sudoku (the raspberry fiend)