Speed post

Went to REI.  Purchased items.  (Have replaced all my daily wear jackets so I don't have to wear something that has permanent farm stains.  Also can reserve super ultralight down jacket for backpacking use.)  Practiced speech 3 times.  (It still sucks.)  Ate and ate and still haven't made it up to my minimum for the day.  No longer hungry, giving up.

Was a long day and tomorrow is going to be longer.

Hasta.  Maybe catch up with you Monday.

Calling all backpacking, horseback riding physiatrists

Just got off the phone with my mom and she recommended I see a physiatrist for activity recommendations after I get my MRI.  Can any of my athletically inclined friends recommend a physiatrist in the DC/MD area?

I really owe you a blog but it's getting late and I got stuff to do because I'm happening like that.  Although I had a little coffee ice cream a couple of hours ago and I am W-I-R-E-D.  Non-caffeinating people probably shouldn't have coffee ice cream at night.

I am outta here like Vladmir

Dear Mom,

I will not be blogging, probably, for the next week or so.  Please don't fret.  I may put up entries at Trailjournals.com, if I have signal.  In any event, Happy Mothers Day!  Probably I will be in a no cell zone that day so have some virtual hugs now.

Dear everybody else,

Piss off.

Okay, I didn't really mean that.  But if the world would go away, or even just back off for a while, that would be nice.  It has been really freaking busy out and I need to go somewhere quiet and lonesome with a good friend and just chill the hell out. 

Unfortunately, I think the trail will probably be pretty crowded.  Trail Days time around Damascus is prime time for current thruhikers actually hiking through, and also old thruhikers reliving their glory days.  As I will be doing.  Although I don't know about the glory, seeing as my hike turned into a very extended section hike as opposed to a thruhike.  But I plan to enjoy it anyway.

My POINT is that I am going hiking and will not be partaking, so much, of the wonders of civilization for a few days.  First I have to get through tomorrow at the office, which promises to be super busy.  But then.. Mwahaha!  It is just me and the wilds and DeLee and some Kahlua and approximately seven thousand other hikers!

Honestly at the moment I'm only hoping for two things.  1) My spine doesn't fall out.  2) I can find a flat place to put my tent at night, probably wedged up next to a man nicknamed Chainsaw.  (All hikers nicknamed Chainsaw are very loud snorers, FYI.)

Then, once we are thoroughly exercised and sunburnt and covered in poison ivy, and possibly triumphant, DeLee and I will merge with the stinky masses of hikers in Damascus and we will be with My People.  People with names like Little Aspen and Leapfrog and Slowride, and Toothpick and G Hippie and Cody.  And many, many others I hope.  If I can remember I will take many pictures. 

PS It was really nice here today.

I love it when that big tree behind the house leafs out

If this picture had smell-o-vision, you would be sighing in happiness right now, like I was.

Blue sky.  Not grey.  Blue.

The neighbors won't look at me funny. They're used to seeing tents in my yard.

Oof.  I think that sitting trot thing is harder on the back than it used to be.  I'm trying to remember how long ago it was that I never posted, I only sat the trot.  It was back when Playboy was in good riding shape.  That would make it.. twelve years ago?  Yeah.  My back noticed the twelve years of no sitting trot. 

I can do the trot no problem, it's afterward that I feel it.  That old degenerative disk disease rears its ugly head.  I can feel the muscles seizing up in my back. 

Still, it feels good when I do it, and I am certainly happy that Pluto is learning to do his part.  It was aggravating the first N years that the only trot he knew how to do was the super high, super lurchy one.  There was no sitting that.  Now he will consent to do a small quantity of a trot that I can sit.

At yoga tonight I was hoping to stretch out my various riding parts and it mostly worked, but I somehow got a cramp in my calf.  I think it was because she told us to point our toes for something.  All it's every really taken for me to get a cramp is for me to point my toes really hard, and then BOOM big old knot in the muscle of my calf.

Before yoga, I raced home and finished seam sealing my tent.  I think that by the time I'm ready to sack out, it should be pretty much dry.  I hope to sleep in it tonight to see if I'm comfortable in it.  I'm concerned that I might feel claustrophobic, since it's one of those tents that comes to a point at either end.  If I do, I guess I'll be ebaying that as well.   Since I sewed on some tabs myself, it looks kind of amateur in places.  Not to mention my stellar seamsealing job.

So, I hope, I am happy with the tent because it would be somewhat embarrassing to have to describe the defects I created in an ad.

Off I go to fish out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag.  And ear plugs.  Stupid road noise.