Wednesday, October 20, 2010

app trail day 15

About September 26, 2010
Day 15 Lambert’s Meadow Campsite à Highway 220 (9.1 miles)
 We’ve been home for 4 days… I haven’t been able to write because I came home and hit the ground running with packing for new York. It’s funny. I wore the same pair of pants for 15 days in the trail and now I’m facing the dilemma of having to pick my favorite 85 clothing pieces to bring with me. Stupid huh?
Anyways back to the topic of already being home. You ever had someone surprisingly take that last bite of your meal? Doesn’t it make you feel all messed up inside? Like cheated? Now when you get a plate of food, your mind psychologically prepares itself for that amount. If someone takes a bite in the beginning or you know that at some point someone will be having a bite, your mind in the psych-prep stage factors this in as well. But when someone surprisingly takes that last bite from you…
So that’s how I felt lying in the tent on the 14th night when we decided that going home early made more sense than staying for the following reasons:
1.       Corey was leaving the next day to Virginia Beach and instead of having Seth’s dad drive 10 hours out of his way on his day off, we could just go home with Corey
2.       Seth remembered it was his dad’s bday on what would have been day 16
3.       The reason we went on this trip was for Seth and he had gotten everything he wanted out of this experience (except Dragon’s tooth L)
4.       It was going to thunderstorm its buns off for the remainder of our time there
5.       My knee was still killing me
Now if it wasn’t for the Dad driving thing, I would have put up with everything else. I didn’t feel like we had been there long enough and again, I was anticipating 3 weeks, not 15 days so I just felt funny about leaving before the date.
Regardless, the next morning came and we would take on the day with the knowledge that this was our last day on the trail. It was raining and I stayed in the tent as long as possible. It was about 730 or 8 and we packed up quickly and started the 9+ mile day… in the rain. We hiked quickly- faster than we had gone before. At the pace we were going at, we’d be through by noon. We were above the clouds which was pretty. I tried to get photos of the pretty leaves while I could. Corey decided to push on ahead solo and Seth took the opportunity to practice his Spanish. As usual, the beginning went by quickly and the end dragged on. We were hasty towards the end and when we finally saw 220, and Corey keeping my hohos company, we were proud.
We hopped in and he drove us to the Home Place. A-mazing. Best fried chicken I’ve ever had. They serve everybody the same thing everyone gets the meats-country ham, roast beef, fried chicken and all of the sides- mashed taters with gravy, green beans cooked in bacon, biscuits, etc. ad somehow we made room for peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm. It was weird seeing so many people in one place, especially all the Va tech lovers. Wish I was there in my “I bleed purple” shirt. So after that little bit of heaven, we drove home and shook and flicked the stink bugs out of all of the equipment…those fuckers made it all the way to VB. I eagerly pulled out the scale for gratification. I told Seth to hop on first and not to look. He said that last time he weighed 202 pounds. I looked and the scale read 190. He lost 12 pounds! –he later found out it was 14. Well if he lost weight surely, I must have lost a ton too- I mean my turkey gobble wasn’t as prominent as it had been before. Seth would look this time before me. I stated that last time I weighed myself I was between 131 and 132. I stepped on then followed Seth’s eyes as they went from the scale and as he gave me a half, fake smile. I looked down and I shit you not 131.6. Wow. Pretty funny. We gave it the old muscle weighs more than fat thing and I defeated sighed. It ended up I actually went down to 126. The smallest I had been in years.
I drove Seth home and while mildly excited to be sleeping in a bed, I knew that this little adventure was over. It had felt like a while and yet a short period of time. I liked it a lot. Things were simple. They were not convenient, but simple. It’s funny, while you’re worrying about your basic needs, you find that the higher peaks on Maslow’s heighacrchy are reached. Inner peace and parts of self actualization. For those who are already in touch with these things, this experience highlights it. Im one of those. Im not sure how it woukd be to not already posess this sense of true happiness within oneself. I recommend this challenging but rewarding experience or really any time that you can get away from all the crap of life-the stuff that actually takes away from what you already know life is actually about (This I say as I type on my computer) I’m about to live in the land of excess. Let’s see how this goes…













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