Tuesday, 6\/16<\/p>\n
AT Miles = 19.6 \/ 1082.3
Other Miles = 0 \/ 39.7
Total Miles = 19.6 \/ 1121.0<\/p>\n
When I got up this morning I couldn't tell whether the sky was clear or overcast, but it was soon apparent that it was the latter, and it felt like it was going to rain. I rigged my pack for rain when I set off, but as it turned out it only rained a bit in the morning and most of the day it stayed dry, more or less.<\/p>\n
Ten miles into the day I was at Caledonia State Park. It was about 10:45 and at 11:00 the snack bar there opens, so I joined several other hikers already there waiting. I spent about an hour and a half there eating a cheeseburger and fries, as well as some of the food I was carrying.<\/p>\n
While I was there a hiker showed up that I haven't seen since Neels Gap, way back in Georgia at about day 4 of the hike. That was a nice moment. When I saw Papa Kiwi (his trail name) I said "Damn, you're skinny!" and almost at the same time he remarked on how much weight I had lost.<\/p>\n
The afternoon was hard. My feet hurt, the weather was damp and sticky, I was feeling tired of being dirty, and I just didn 't feel like walking another ten miles, but eventually I got here and washed up and ate a hot meal, and my outlook has improved a lot.<\/p>\n
Today while walking I was thinking some more about the responses I got to my post of a couple days ago where I mentioned how some thru-hikers behave somewhat rudely toward weekend and section hikers. I've been thinking that for some people thur-hiking is kind of like high school. They become part of the thru-hiking community, which is really a very small community, though it is spread out along the trail. They seem to like being part of a distinct group, and one of the ways a group is defined is by who is excluded; in this case those hikers who are not thru-hikers. What happens within the world of thru-hikers takes on exaggerated importance, just like when you were in high school and the world of school seemed to be the most important thing in the world.<\/p>\n
Well, I never really fit in when I was in high school, and I don't fit in on the trail the same way I would if I were 24 years old, so it is easy to sit on the outskirts and practice my amateur analysis. In any case, I think it's a shame when some people behave in such a way as to make other hikers feel uncomfortable or out of place, and I choose not to do so.<\/p>\n
It is starting to rain now. Hopefully it will rain tonight and be all done by morning, but I have heard rumors that this is a storm that is supposed to hang around tomorrow.<\/p>\n
My plan is to hike 17 miles tomorrow, then 12 on Thursday which should get me to Boiling Springs around noon. Assuming I can get a place to stay, I will zero there on Friday and head back out on the trail on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Monkeywrench Tuesday, 6\/16 AT Miles = 19.6 \/ 1082.3Other Miles = 0 \/ 39.7Total Miles = 19.6 \/ 1121.0 When I got up this morning I couldn't tell whether the sky was clear or overcast, but it was soon apparent that it was the latter, and it felt like it was going to rain. I rigged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at_thru_hike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Allen Freeman
allen@allenf.com<\/a>
www.allenf.com<\/a>
allenf.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"