More Milestones

Signs of the more difficult times ahead...

The past three days have been full of even more milestones for me, in both quantity and quality. I just completed my longest continuous hike yet - just over 40 miles in the past three days, with a total of about 29 hours of hiking time and 2 nights camping. The terrain varied, from extremely tough climbs and descents to relatively easy hiking along ridgetops with little elevation change. The second two big milestones we achieved were:

1) Finishing the first of the 13 states the AT passes through - Georgia. There are about 70 AT miles in the state of GA. Now only 12 more states to go...

NC/GA border!

2) Finishing the first 100 miles of the hike. Now only just over 2,000 to go...

At the stream marking 100 miles!

Had some interesting weather experiences. It rained all day Sunday and most of the day Monday. A light drizzle, really and nothing too upsetting. Until 8pm Monday night, as we were setting up camp, after it had been beautiful for 4 hours, when it started pouring halfway through putting the tent up. Everything was soaked. It was the first time I actually felt miserable. My feet hurt, I was freezing, and all my stuff was wet. I had a bowl of Ramen and got over it. There's lots more of this to come. But for those of you who were waiting for my impossibly upbeat attitude to fail, there you go. A wet tent will do that to you. Tuesday was beautiful though, and we made good time to Winding Stair Gap to meet the RV. We got there in time for a shower, and snack before the Mel Tillis concert. There is no lack of fun and entertainment on this AT journey. Mel was playing in Franklin, NC, right down the road, and his show was hilarious and his music was great. Good, old-fashioned country music.

Met some interesting folks along the way over the past few days. We passed the "Korean Alpine Club of Georgia" on Sunday, out for a day hike. It is exactly what it sounds like, a group of Korean-Americans living in northern GA who share a passion for all things mountainous. They looked like they were enjoying themselves, although for all I know they could've been miserable, since none of them were speaking English. We passed a group of older hikers (there were about 30 of them) going up Standing Indian Mountain. One of them told me that I "looked like a thru-hiker if he'd ever seen one." I think he was just being nice but it was a good ego boost. We also met a man I will call "Scottie," a 72 year old gentleman from Scotland (hence the name) who reminded me very much of Sean Connery (so of course, I immediately fell in love with him). He's been traveling the world for the past 7 years, and is currently on the "American Odyssey" section of his journeys. He was also out for a day hike, with nothing but his little yellow umbrella, and gave me very inspiring words of encouragement while telling me a bit about his travels. He is a man who is living his life to its absolute fullest, and not taking a single day for granted. I will probably never see you again, Scottie, but you uplifted me, and I hope the rest of your travels are wonderful. I will be careful on my way to Maine, and I will do my best to savor every step, as you so clearly do. I wanted to leave you with these Gaelic lines before you left, ones I read somewhere years ago, but I could not remember the words. So, here they are now:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Feet still hurt. Still tired. Still learning. Hey, it's only the first week, right?

One of the more interesting sights thus far - an old fire tower on top of Albert Mountain.

Things always seem better from the top...

Quote of the Day: "I've been traveling the world for 7 years. I've only seen 2 of the United States so far. But you know what? There's no deadline. I'm on the "rest-of-my-life" schedule." -Scottie