500 Miles and Counting

500 Miles!!!

Unfortunately, poor connectivity has kept me from posting for a few days, but I am very happy to report a huge milestone we achieved on Monday - hitting the 500 mile mark of our hike. This means that we've hiked almost 1/4 of the entire trail. Not bad. We slackpacked for the past 3 days, which is always nice. We got to hike through more of Grayson Highlands State Park on Monday, and saw some familiar sights.

Reunited with my little friend. This time I had sugar cubes.

More open meadows.

We came across an interesting place Monday, called "The Scales" because they used to weigh and sell cattle there, since the cows would lose weight if driven down the mountain to market, thus making them less valuable. Now it's just a field that someone maintains for tourists, and a really excellent camping spot.

The Scales.

The next two days included some relatively low elevation hiking through some dense woods. We saw some beautiful forest, streams, waterfalls and the biggest snake I've ever seen (it was literally at least 8 feet long and as big around as a baseball....no idea what species it was...). Wednesday was the longest slackpacking day we've ever had. We hiked almost 15 miles, which usually only happens when we overnight in the woods and hike all day long. We're regularly doing 2 miles per hour pretty constantly now, which is a great pace for my short legs, and I was proud of our progress.

Comer Creek Falls on Tuesday.

Human AT Signs - Daddy's latest photography gimmick. See the symbol?

Cow Pasture on Wednesday.

Partnership Shelter on Wednesday - by far the nicest shelter I've seen so far. It even had a shower, which I gladly took full advantage of.

Now that I'm almost 1/4 of the way through the trail, I've been think a lot about why I'm doing this. It's a very hard question to answer, mostly because there are lots of emotions and many hours of thought and walking tied up in it. The easy answer is that I love being outside. I was raised outside, barefoot most of the time, at the lake. It's where I feel at home. It's where I feel most like myself. I find myself now with a year of time on my hands, to use as I please. I loved college, and wouldn't trade the past 4 years for anything on Earth. But most of those years were spent under fluorescent lights, and I was craving sunshine. On top of that, I'll never have another chance to spend this much time with my parents, uninterrupted. I recently realized that the past two months has been the longest period of time I can ever remember spending with Daddy without his beeper or cell phone buzzing. Not to mention that this is the adventure of a lifetime, and the chance to do something very few people in the world ever do, and I'm a sucker for a challenge. Beyond the obvious, there's something liberating about being here, away from normal responsibilities. It's not about running away, and it's not about escaping. But maybe I'm looking for something. Within myself, within the world, I don't know. Hopefully it's hiding in the next 1600 miles. I'll let you know when I find it.

In case you didn't catch it the first time: Human AT sign.