No more bachelor life for JD

I'm home!  I'm sure you're thrilled.  At least the dog was thrilled.  She grabbed me with her little prehensile doggy-claws and didn't want to let go.  However she has now settled down and things feel pretty much back to normal, including the fact that I am now procrastinating doing the laundry and cleaning the litterboxes.

We had a really excellent hiking trip.  I really shouldn't play favorites with my hiking trips but this one was really, really good.  For one thing the weather was forecast to be ridiculously bad, and in fact it was pretty good.  For another, we pretty much rocked the hiking part.  I think Dee did her longest day ever, and she was still in decent shape afterward, barring her standard under-toenail blisters.  (We have *got* to find shoes which will fit her after her feet swell.  Seriously.  It's an issue.)  We met some really fun and nice people named (as a group) the Happy Hikers, and we saw them several times.  And we ran into a whole bunch of old friends on the trail!  Plus, Trail Days happened.

The Happy Hikers decided to do a massage line after they saw me and Dee trading off shoulder massages.

So aside from Toe Blisters, we were relatively injury free, which is nice.  Oh, actually on the last day Dee tripped and scraped up a knee.  And ripped out the knee of her hiking pants.  But it didn't progress to anything worse than a scrape, so some gauze and a little advil took care of it.

I chose this section for the scenery.  I love me some Grayson Highlands.

It was crazy crowded however.  I have seldom if ever seen this many people camped at shelters.  We only managed to get into a shelter one night.  The others we camped out.  The new tents performed quite well.  Mine admitted a quarter sized puddle of water during a thirteen hour stretch of (occasionally torrential) rain overnight.  I think that's pretty good, but the tentmaker was unhappy with it when I told her.  I may go back and seamseal a little more, or I may not.  Not sure it's worth the hassle.

Our last day we decided to leave the AT and hike down the Creeper Trail into town, as did many other hikers.  We got into town one day early, AND we got to stop at a trailside cafe.  Double win.  Pulled pork, french fries, and a cold coke on a hiking day do not suck.  And since we were in town, that night, we got to have pizza.  Neither of us really wanted to set up in tent city, so we extended our motel reservation by a day and found a ride to Abingdon.  Our ride was in the back of a pickup truck, which given our six days without a shower was best for all concerned.  The gentlemen gave us a lift back to Damascus in the morning, AND some helpful hints on hiking southbound from Katahdin.

I managed not to spend ALL of my money at Trail Days, though I may have eaten all of the food.  In which case I'm sorry about everybody else going hungry.  But I had a serious case of Hiker Hunger going on and there was nothing I could do about it.  Friday we had breakfast at the motel, then second breakfast, then ice cream, then lunch, then beer, then dinner.  Then cupcakes.  I'm not sure we reined it in on Saturday, either.  Sunday I tried to cut back.

It was really grand to see so many hiker friends, but I became sad when it was time to say goodbye.  One or two days of hugs and quick conversations is not at all the same as getting to hike together for days.  I miss spending hours and days with these folks. Seeing as how most of them don't appear to be giving up hiking, maybe I will get to spend lots of time with them again.

I did get one incredible unexpected bonus:  Little Aspen and Toothpick said they'll summit Katahdin with me!  They live in Maine so I figured I'd ask if they wanted to meet me on the trail for a bit, which is kind of like saying somebody lives in California so it's no problem to meet them in LA right?  Maine is huge.  But they liked the idea, and I'm summiting on a Sunday so they'll both have the day off anyway.  I'm excited!  I thought it would be me climbing alone, taking my arms-length iphone picture of myself.  Having two wonderful people up there with me to celebrate the day would be a huge gift.  I just hope it works out - it's still a couple of months away and plans can change.