BACK FROM BACKPACKING (you gotta read this story and see these pictures)

MMMmmmm, it was wonderful! I would have been happy to go another day. Or two. Or 150.

Eight miles yesterday, overnight in my tent in the rain (stayed dry this time) eight miles back today. It was hot, hiking. I sweated like crazy. It felt great. Mountain laurel is in bloom.

Yesterday I got tired early, and my backpack didn't feel good. Felt like I'd been hiking for hours (and in fact I had) when I passed a landmark that my guide book said was 3 miles from my starting point. 3 miles???? In 3 hours???? I've got 5 miles (5 hours?) to go??? GACKKK!!!


The good news was that I'd hiked all the way to the next state already.

Almost as soon as I hit the trail, I met up with a man named Ray who was hiking from Front Royal, VA to Maine. We hiked together some; now and then one or the other of us would take a break or go ahead, but we kept catching up to each other. Shortly after that 3-mile place, we met up again and stayed together after that. We talked a lot about grown kids, grandkids, books, and of all things, hiking, and the miles went faster.



View from an outcropping:

Is it any wonder I love this Trail?

There were actually quite a few thru-hikers (northbound having started in Georgia.) I needn't have worried about being alone (the reason I took Journey, so I wouldn't have to camp alone overnight.) Here are, left to right, Ronja, a Swiss Mountain Dog who thru-hiked with her owner Rhino from Georgia to Maine a couple years ago and is doing it a second time; Ronja's German owner, Rhino; Bad Idea (I love that Trail Name) petting Journey; Byron, who doesn't use a Trail Name. All of us, including Ray, ate lunch together beside a stream.

Ronja takes full advantage of the rest stop. She's an experienced hiker and knows the ropes.

I noticed that Journey, a gen-u-wyne mongrel pound-hound, looks almost identical to Ronja, a gen-u-wyne Swiss Mountain Dog. Several people I met asked if "Journey" is Journey's real name or her Trail Name.

During the night it poured rain a couple times. After my last rainy campout, I'd sealed my tent seams and sprayed it with Scotchgard Outdoor spray, and I stayed dry as a bone. Journey, my pack/gear, and I barely fit inside but we figured it out. Journey slept between my feet.

For my return trip, I redistributed the stuff in my pack, doing away with firmly-compressed cylinders of sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and groundcloth, just piling all loosely into the pack (except the pad, which I folded instead of rolling) and letting them vie for space until they had filled in all the voids. The tent went on the outside, since it was wet. Everything fit a lot better and my pack felt lighter and rode immeasurably better.

Here's just a pretty stretch of trail on the way home:

It rained a little, off and on. I tried something new this trip: an umbrella, instead of rain jacket. I loved it!

And back into Virginia, which meant 3 miles left to go.

I went a lot faster than on the way out, not that speed is an issue, it just shows how much more comfortable I was after repacking. On the other hand, it turned out to be an issue after all, because I'd been hearing distant thunder, and after another mile or so it was getting closer. The rain started just as I reached my car. By the time I had Journey and my pack in, the storm was in full force and I decided not to drive in it, and waited it out in the parking lot. Wow!! Serious driving rain, trees whipping back and forth, lightning striking all around -- I could see the strikes nearby. I was glad I wasn't still out on the Trail and thought about hikers I'd seen just recenly that I knew were getting clobbered.


Finally it let up and I drove out to the highway. Uh-oh:

And this is only one of them. They were everywhere. I was wise to wait it out, or I'd have been on this road when they came down.

Oh, no, traffic at a standstill:

One impatient driver trying to go around the tie-up:

Fire fighters clearing the mess:

Gee whillikers, I hope the hikers that got caught out there are OK.

Traffic inched along getting nowhere for about 20 minutes. Then a woman with an umbrella came towards the line of cars with a report: Trees and power lines down over the next mile, time estimate 2-3 hours to clear. Luckily I was near a side road and turned off. I didn't know where it went but guessed I could figure out the general direction and end up back out on the highway and/or back in Winchester.

A couple hundred yards in on the side road, I came upon this. Holy smoke. Can you see there's a friggin' TRUCK in there???

It was in an otherwise-deserted parking lot, and I pulled in and looked inside.... no one in there. Thank goodness:

Just ironically.... this is the facility in whose parking lot this occurred:

The local TV news comes out of Washington, D.C. Although they had no reports of storm damage in the Berryville, VA area, there was a confirmed tornado touchdown east of D.C. where *jeanne* lives. I called her but wasn't able to get an answer. I left voicemails on her home and cell phones. *jeanne*, are you OK???


I don't think it was a tornado that we had here, because the trees that were down were all lying the same direction, and there was no swath of destruction. I've seen tornado damage before; I think this was straight-line wind in a ferocious thunderstorm, maybe a microburst.

So I'm back, after a glorious backpacking trip followed by excitement (I don't want anyone go get hurt, and I feel really bad for the owner of the truck), but..... a good storm is one of the things I really like, right up there with a good hike.)


Things I learned on this trip:

• It's better to wait out a nasty storm.


• My stuff fits in my backpack more nicely when it's not all compressed into a bunch of hard, cylindrical lumps.


• I use an amazing amount of water in camp.


• It's hard to look out for a dog while hiking.... looking after oneself is quite enough.


• Check more scrupulously for ticks: I pulled on off my scalp after a shower AND shampoo this evening... and I'd worn a hat the whole time hiking.


• Although there are many AT hikers, a very small percent are women. I met one. She was section-hiking, started in Georgia 5 years ago; lives in San Diego, comes east once a year, picks up where she left off, and hikes another section. She seemed my age or maybe 5 years older.


• I love an umbrella for hiking and camping in the rain.


• I love hiking, backpacking, and camping. But we knew that already, didn't we?

I'M GOING BACKPACKING!

Overnight! Two days off work! It's gonna be fun!



Sally had a last minute conflict, so I'll be going alone. I am, however, I'm taking Journey, my mixed-breed dog. I don't know how many people will be on the AT this early in summer and in the middle of the week. If it's sparse I will feel better with my dog along, especially overnight. She's a friendly oaf but has been knownto put the fear of God into strangers who got too close. Didn't bite, but few people want to test a barking, growling 50 pound dog.



Today I plan to start at the Bears Den Hostel and hike 8 miles to the Blackburn Center, which looks like a good spot to spend the night, plenty of campsites, water, critter-safe food-storage. There are 2 water sources en route, so there will be plenty for both Journey and me. Then tomorrow I'll hike back to Bears Den and drive back home. I can do 8 miles. I run/walk that far all the time for "fun," triathlontraining.



I can't believe how much gear I'm taking for just overnight. Actually, what I'm taking is everything I'd take on a thru-hike, just less food. I won't need everything (extra clothes etc.) but might as well pack it all for a true shakedown hike. Base pack weight is 25#. With food and water, 30. My food is onthe heavy side... since it's only 2 days I'm taking some fresh foods, apples, carrot sticks, stuff that's heavy but it's only for 2 days. Plus I have food for Journey. Super-healthy trail mix: raisins, walnuts, Cracklin' Oat Bran. It's yummy!!



I'm excited -- first AT hike since last summer, first one in Virginia!



Gear:

Appropriate Thru-Hiker's Companion pages

ID

Sleeping bag & liner

Therma-Rest sleeping pad

Groundcloth (INside tent because of Journey's nails)

Tent & rainfly, which I've sealed and waterproofed since my last wet campout (t-storms predicted overnight)

Poncho

Umbrella

Cookset & fuel (denatured alcohol, stored in outside pocket)

2 lunches, 1 dinner, 1 breakfast; trail mix, cheese crackers, beef jerkey forsnacks; double usual daily serving of dog food

Extra clothes (double as pillow)

"Night Kit" -- contact case & solution, mirror (check for ticks), tooth and nail brushes, teeny toothpaste, nail file for rough spots, soap (Ivory), comb, light to hang in tent, book pages, reading glasses, regular glasses to back up contacts

Bandanna

Hat

Sunscreen

Bug dope

Pit-stop kit (trowel, TP, squirt bottle, Purell)

Murphy Kit (first-aid and repair stuff, salt tablets, benadryl, Journey'srabies certificate)

Epi-Pen (I don't do bees very well)

Water bottles, pocket water bowl for Journey so she doesn't drink out of the water source and get dog drool in it

Sharpie for new trail friends to sign my shirt (I'm starting a "HikingFriends" shirt)



Really -- stuff you need overnight is the same as stuff you need on a long-distance hike, except that on a long hike you take more food. Other than that, everything's the same.

I'm outta here!

MORE STORMS, MORE SEWING

I didn't think we were supposed to have rain this afternoon, and planned a bike ride after cleaning the restrooms after I got home from church.

But when the restrooms were done, the sky looked bad. And it proceeded to rain. And it proceeded to pour. And the wind proceeded to gust and the camper to rock.

I guessed I wouldn't be biking, second day in a row.

So I sewed myself a hiking outfit. Skirt (with pockets) and matching loose shorts (also with pockets) of thin, lightweight cotton (yeah, cotton, more on that in a minute.)

Lots of hikers are hiking in skirts nowadays, including the guys, because of the ventilation they offer -- when you hike 8 or 10 hours in a day, this becomes important, especially if you're on a long-distance hike without laundry facilities and limited changes of underwear in your pack.

I had thought I'd go for the best of both worlds: lightweight skirt over men's Hanes boxers, which are lightweight, thin, airy, and dry quickly. But I didn't like the cut of the boxers. They just didn't feel right.

So I made my own. They fit like they were made for me :-) And a skirt to go over them. Why do I need a skirt if I have shorts that don't look like underwear? Well, a skirt provides a little "tent" for privacy when nature calls. I've learned to pee standing up without baring my butt (that's why I want loose shorts) but you can't do everything standing up. And although you go off the trail by yourself to answer said calls of nature, still, someone might happen by. Anyway, I'm going to try this skirt/shorts duo. It will make it easy to put on a warm layer, if needed... just put it over the shorts under the skirt, rather than under my shorts like most people do, which would defeat the purpose of the shorts.

Now, about cotton. Ordinarily, you don't want to wear cotton because it's too absorbent, gets wet with sweat, and doesn't dry quickly. You can get very cold wearing cotton. However, most hikers won't leave home without a cotton bandanna for 101 purposes. The main virtues of these bandannas are their absorbency (sweat, wet dishes, condensation inside your tent, etc., etc.) AND their ability to dry fast. So, I've harnessed those qualities for under-shorts. For my AT hike, I figure on 3 pairs: one to wear, one to wash, one in reserve. After a day's hiking, I'll rinse 'em out, then hang them on my backpack to dry during the next day's hike, and it won't look like I've got underwear hanging on my pack.

My friend Sally and I are going for a 6-8-mile dayhike Tuesday. I'll try 'em then.

THIS SUPPER STINKS

5-yr-old granddaughter Abbie, eating supper with us, saw a clothespin on the counter next to the table and clamped it onto her nose. I guess she didn't like supper (note bowl pushed away, by her elbow...)

STORMY SATURDAY

A bike ride was on my schedule. But a look at the weather page changed that: 70% possibility of thunderstorms, possibly severe, tornado watch throughout the day. When the wind whipped up, I brought Journey inside off her tie-out. When the rain started, I brought out my sewing machine.

I made a nylon sleeping-bag liner to replace the heavier, bulkier fleece one I made during my backyard campout in April. I made a couple of stuff sacks. I started to make a backpack but decided that was my delusions of grandeur kicking in. I've been buying nylon fabric of various weights and textures on the Wal-Mart $1-a-yard table. I've actually gotten some good stuff.

Plus, I cleaned the campground restrooms as usual, and hung out at the entrance gate from 3-7p.m.

Not bad for a bike ride gone bad. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice. Tomorrow I'll do that ride. After I clean the restrooms. After I go to church.

SARAH, ONE WEEK OLD

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!

Thumbsucking lesson from Grandpa.

By George, I think she's got it!

Ahhh, objective achieved... thumbs and Grandpas rock.

So do big sisters.

And Great-Grandmas. The oldest and youngest members of the Benedict side of the family: Ellinor Learned Benedict (87)holding Sarah Brecken Hamilton (7 days.)

Four generations in the direct family line:

Ellinor Benedict, Ellinor Hamilton (er, that would be me, aka Ellie) holding Sarah Hamilton, Jonathan Hamilton holding Abigail Hamilton.

Hand-in-hand on the Life Trail: Great-Grandma Benedict and Sarah Hamilton.

PICTURES OF SARAH, one day old

My husband Steve was hooting like an owl. Sarah was trying to figure out what this new grown-up trick was.

Sarah with her mommy -- our daughter-in-law Jamie.

And with Daddy, our son Jon.

Jon's hand with Sarah's.

SARAH BRECKEN HAMILTON

Our son Jon and his wife Jamie welcomed their second daughter into the world Monday, May 19, 2008, at 2:52a.m.

Happy parents and new daughter, a mere 2-1/2 hours after Jamie started labor!! Sarah weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces, and was 20 inches long.

When I first held her, the next day, I started crying and kept saying to her, "Is it really you???"

Grandma and her newest granddaughter.

Every girl loves our son Jon, especially when he's her daddy.

In the late afternoon, Abbie came in, brought after school by her Grandma Judy, and I got to hold my two youngest granddaughters together.

Abbie is an "old hand" at being a big sister in this picture, having been the first family member to hold her after Mommy and Daddy the day before.

Abbie chose Sarah's first name, insisting from the moment she knew there was a baby that it was Sarah. She would not entertain the possibility that it might be a boy or that there could be any other name for her. Jon found her middle name. It's Scottish (like the Hamilton ancestry) and means "freckled."

So we now have 4 grandchildren: Collin, 12; Gracie (Grayson), 9; Abbie, 5; and Sarah, now not quite 48 hours old. Then there's Hevan(pronounced ay-vahn): he's the 5-month-old son of Cecile, who came to us as an exchange student from France in 1997 and instantly became our daughter. That makes her husband Joachim our son-in-law, and their son Hevan our grandson.

Sarah. I'm never going to let you go -- I want to hold you in my arms forever. I get to see you every week or two until Christmas. Whatever made me think I might rather have been hiking?

I ALMOST WISH I WEREN'T DOING THIS

SavageMan, that is.


Last summer, in New Hampshire, I put almost all running and biking on hold to hike in the White Mountains, reinvented myself as a backpacker, and my life changed.

I need to keep reminding myself that I have been drooling to do SavageMan since it was first conceived (not even born yet) in 2006. Had it not been for granddaughter Sarah (who is still waiting in the wings, yet to make her appearance), I'd be on the Trail now, but missing out on SavageMan yet again, and also without my friend Sally, who had decided she wouldn't be able to go but has now changed her mind and is preparing to go with me next year. So it's working out that I'm getting the best of everything.


Now, living again near the Appalachian Trail (northern Virginia,) I've got all this biking and running to do when I'd rather be backpacking. Sally is out on a shakedown trip for the weekend with her son, complete with brand-new down sleeping bag.


I couldn't go, not because of training, but because of work. Weekends are, of course, the busiest part of working at a campground. And so far, I haven't been scheduled to have 2 consecutive days off, so I couldn't do an overnight anyway, and biking/running is something I can fit in around my work hours, even the split shifts I have 3 days a week.


So, I have an agenda:

• Discuss my schedule to get a midweek "weekend."
• Take an occasional break from training to go backpacking.
• Remember this is the Year of SavageMan, not the Year of the AT.
• Go to Harper's Ferry, WV, about 30 miles from here, to the AT Headquarters, to get info and get psyched (as if I'm not already.)
• After SavageMan, start hitting the Trail -- we'll be here till Christmas!

DON'T STOP TO SMELL THE APPLE BLOSSOMS

APPLE BLOSSOM 10K, WINCHESTER, VA

This is the escort vehicle.... cool, huh?

I had neither expected nor trained for a 10K, but when we arrived 3 days ago at Candy Hill Campground, my employer/young friend presented me with a registration form, all excited and happy: "I got you this, it's a great big 10K and it's Saturday!" So I said, "Great, I'd love to run it, if I can start cleaning the bathrooms a little late that day...."

It was huge. 1000+ runners. The winners were from Kenya and Ethiopia. I've never seen such a big 10K. Here's the starting field, from the back of the pack, but you can't appreciate how many runners there are since it's flat.

It was a 4-lane street, and when the race director asked people who expected 50+ minutes to move to the left lanes, there was this mass migration:

I ran my first mile in 11:05, which was good, since I wasn't trained and planned on taking it easy the first couple miles. Second mile split showed 18:XX on my watch, GACKKKK, I didn't think I'd speeded up THAT much, that's gonna kill me right there. Slow down, kiddo. You're not trained. And you're kicking sleeping pills and didn't sleep last night. And you have a cold. You've run marathons and done Ironman's but you haven't run a 10K in 5 years. Slow down.


5K time: 30:xx by the clock. Jee-minetty, I did a 7:xx second mile and a 12:xx third? This is nuts.


Later I realized, the clocks did not, of course, match my watch/chip times. Watch times:


Mile 1: 9:23

Mile 2: 9:07

5K: 29:08



But I was looking at the clocks, not at my watch, so I was confused and didn't realize what a nice pace I was running, being tired and untrained and all.

Either there was no 4-mile marker or I missed it. At mile 5, I was at 50:26 (watch time.)


Somewhere between miles 3 and 4, I stopped to take this picture, since I wasn't trying for a time or an AG place.



It cost me a few seconds, but so what?


"So what?" turned out to be, it cost me a sub-1-hour 10K. My watch time at the finish was 1:00:12. And it's not even that exciting a picture. I should have left my camera in my pocket. Or in the car.


AG 4/6 (awards only 3 deep though), average pace 9:58. Not bad at all. But I'm not taking a camera during a race anymore. That sub-1-hour would have been very gratifying.


OTOH, it would have raised the dreaded question: What could I do if I trained????

UNCLE

Sleeping in the tent again last night, my face was cold. With my fleece sleeping bag liner and extra clothes, last night (32*F) I was no longer cozy but not freezing. I had a hat, since my bag doesn't have a hood; my head was warm enough but my face was cold and that made me miserable. Well, no hiker leaves home without a bandana, so MacGyver strikes again with a redneck ski mask. Hey, it worked.

I didn't have my camera in the tent, which is why the background looks so well-furnished -- I took the pic in the camper. (It's a Lance Armstrong Livestrong bandana; the flash washed out the print.)

So last night, night #4 in the tent, each one progressively colder -- it starts raining again (Tyvek rainfly worked great) in the middle of the night, then changes to snow. And I'm still challenging my 40* sleeping bag to keep up with the chill, even though I was cold in it at 50* and have done more things each night to make it work, hoping not to have to buy another sleeping bag.

I think I'm gonna need a bigger boat. That is, a warmer sleeping bag. On the AT in early spring and again in fall, you can expect twenties and teens (or not, but you have to be prepared.) This backyard-camping gig was an experiment to see how I could deal with rain, and how low I could go in my current bag. The bag didn't meet the Garrett County Spring Snow Challenge, so the experiment is finished. I fixed leaks, drips, and solved a variety of problems, but I am not adequately supplied for sleeping at 30 degrees with 98% humidity. Today I took down the tent and tonight I'm sleeping with my husband in the camper.

I'm not giving up on hiking in cold weather in early spring and late fall. I'm just gonna need a 3-season sleeping bag. The one I've been trying to jury-rig for cold weather is a summer bag Steve got for a bike trip a few years ago. I try to make do with what I have, and a lot of my workable gear is homemade and/or put together out of spare parts. But I'm gonna have to get a warmer bag. At least my face will never be cold.

LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE

Well, 3 nights into my backyard camping expedition, I'm learning so fast my IQ just might be going back up. (Blonde, senior, working all winter with toddlers, I've been losing ground.)


I LOVE that fleece sleeping-bag liner I made. I have been so cozily warm and toasty I didn't want to get up. And for some reason, despite being so warm as to be aware of being warm, not a single night-time hot flash since I've been sleeping outside.


Last night it rained all night. Today all morning, too. It sounded lovely on the tent and I slept beautifully.


However, I have drips, leaks, and a wet tent floor.


Drips and leaks: I'm not sure why this is happening, except that the ties to my rainfly slip a little causing it to loosen. It works like an umbrella, only shedding rain if it's taut. I re-adjusted the ties and secured them better.


Then I made a second rainfly out of an extra piece of Tyvek I have.










The Tyvek sheet doesn't have any grommets or loops to attach guylines to, so I did this:




A little ball of tin-foil, rolled till smooth, wrapped with a rubber band, gives the guyline something to hold onto. Yes, MacGyver here had these little tin-foil balls in her emergency kit, having thought of it all by herself. And the rubber bands. Just for such an eventuality. None of it weighs anything in my pack. MacGyver also had extra tent stakes, although they do add a little weight.

Then I staked out the "optional" rainfly guyouts, intended for windy conditions which I did not have, but I guess I need them in rain, too.



Mind you, I am doing all this in the rain. Because I need to learn how to set up and/or fix problems when it's raining.


Wet floor: this is because part of my Tyvek groundcloth was peeking out from under my tent, and rain falling on that ran in under and pooled, just like all the literature, info and intel say it will. I knew this. I had been careful setting up the tent squarely over the groundcloth. But yesterday, when I noticed some sidewall-slacking, I readjusted the stakeout positions, which caused the tent to move off the groundcloth a little, and I was CARELESS and didn't notice and now I was paying for it.


I debated which would be easier:

• Pull out the groundcloth, dry it, and move the tent over it,
• Or pull it out, dry it, and shove it back underneath the loaded tent.

I went for the second. It was a hassle. But I got that done and trust me, NO part of that groundcloth is peeking out now.

The final step: at the end where the running-under was happening, I scraped a little drainage trench. Now, in the wilderness, this would violate the Leave No Trace commitment. But here in the State Park, where tents and campers are only allowed to situate on gravel camping pads, it doesn't matter. I'll scuff it back up and no one will ever see it was there.

The advantage of doing all this in the backyard is that I can go into the camper and get what I need. Like a towel. To dry my wet floor. Which meant moving everything, including my sleeping pad and all my accumulated gear.

My sleeping bag had some damp places where it had been dripped on. This is not a disaster; it's one advantage of synthetic fill over down: it maintains its insulating ability even when wet. So does fleece, although my bag liner was still dry anyway.


The night before last, I was toasty warm with my fleece liner, but my head was cold, and when I ducked it under my bag, I couldn't breathe. Yesterday I messed around with it and found there's enough extra length to pull up over my head and make a hood using the drawstring, although it's not a "mummy" bag. So I did that last night but, the bag not being made for that, it was uncomfortable and I ended up tying my sweater over my head like a bandana.


Tonight I'm wearing a knit hat.

BEAR ON MEADOW MOUNTAIN!!

Our son Jon went running with me on the same Meadow Mountain Trail that I hiked the other day.

Hoo boy, first bear-sighting of the season!! I knew I was right to hang my food while camping out!

Yup, that's a real bear, and yup, we saw him on today's run, and yup, luckily I had my camera in my pocket.

SavageMan triathletes..... this is the trail section of the course. That's why we ran it today -- I wanted to run the SavageMan course. The International Distance tri goes once around the loop, the half-iron distance, twice.

Holly -- Bear alert on SavageMan course!! :-)

BTW, he moved away from the trail, looked at us for maybe half a minute, then turned and trotted away up the mountain.

Jon's GPS only showed a total of 5.7 miles, but it may have done some as-the-crow-flies averaging since Jon had it in his pocket. It showed 65 minutes for that distance, but we walked the roughest uphill sections. Rough = both difficult grade and difficult surface, rough and rocky. But only for maybe half a mile. Most of it is fairly smooth woodland hiking trail, much of it is a gravel road downhill, and the last mile or so paved.

Jon is the child of ours who's waiting for his second daughter, Sarah, to be born any time. I wish she'd be born today.... it's Steve's birthday. It's 8pm now but what the heck, it's a second birth, it could go down in 4 hours or less....c'mon, Jamie, have that baby!

RE-DO... MORE TENTING OUT

Well. At 6:30 this morning I looked at the thermometer on my outside tent zipper and it read 50*. I had been cold all night in my 40* sleeping bag with my regular night clothes (t-shirt and boxer shorts) and a light sweater. Conclusion, multiple choice:

• (a) A warmer sleeping bag (nights can be in the teens in spring in the Smoky Mountains, and any time in New Hampshire and Maine)
• (b) A sleeping bag liner
• (c) Wear more clothes to bed
• (d) A warmer sleeping bag
• (e) More than one of the above
• (f) All of the above

So today I sewed up a fleece sleeping bag liner out of a blanket I've been chopping up for other things (like a sleeping pad for the cat's carrying box when we travel.) It was a gift I didn't really need but didn't have the heart to re-gift, so it turns out I'm finding uses for it.

I'll try the liner out tonight. Low temp last night was 50* and dry; tonight 41* and damp is expected (system of thunder storms went through.)

I sat in my tent this evening in pouring rain and discovered a couple of drips inside. I'll have to look online about re-waterproofing it.

It was fun, though, sitting in the tent reading during an afternoon thunderstorm. Maybe not safe, but fun. And it's not impossible I'll have to do that on the AT.... won't always be near a solid shelter when a storm comes up. In fact, in a sudden storm, I'll probably just pitch my Tyvek ground cloth as a tarp.

In fact, it's not impossible I could just go with the Tyvek tarp, period, if I can't leakproof the tent. Maybe I'll spray-paint my Tyvek in a camo pattern or something so I wouldn't have a glaring-white tarptent. I could make a decent tent out of a piece of Tyvek. I have an 8 X 10 urethane-coated nylon tarp, but if I go to just a tarp, the Tyvek weighs ounces, compared to the nylon tarp's 1.5 pounds.

Who knows. I've got almost a year to try everything, find what works, find what doesn't, and learn what things I have to save up $ for.

Off now to test my 40* bag with fleece liner in actual 40* temp!

MEADOW MOUNTAIN

It's a trail, and it has white blazes, and I'm pretending it's the AT.

Actually it's Meadow Mountain Trail, one of many hiking trails (8 miles' worth) at Deep Creek Lake State Park in Garrett County, MD.

What I'm doing is.... I loaded up my backpack with all my gear (27 pounds including the pack, and food for overnight) and went hiking. I've pitched my tent in an empty campsite in the park (most of them, this time of year), cooked Ramen noodles in my fruit-can pot on my soda-can stove, took a bird bath inside my tent, and I'm going to spend the night out there. I'm inside our camper (where we live full-time) for awhile b/c I have a couple hours to spend before sleeping-bag time. I didn't hike all day long so I wasn't ready for bed at sundown. I'm going to fold laundry :-)

I need practice getting myself organized, that's for sure. Stuff is all over the place inside my tent. Maybe that's normal. And I couldn't find the nylon cord I swore I'd packed to rig up a bear bag (yup, bear country here as on the AT.) Luckily I could just come into the camper and get more. Beats me where that went.

Anyway, I'm not hiking the AT, because Grandbaby Sarah is due any time now (although she could be another 3 or 4 weeks.) It was worth it to re-plan. The other day while biking, I thought of holding her in my arms for the first time, and I started bawling right there on my bike. I wouldn't be able to stand not being close by when she arrives.

So I'm not on the AT but I'm pretending I am (yeah, typing on the computer) and practicing packing and using my gear. And rigging the bear bag.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

At 6:30 I was awake thinking, "I'm awake, I should go for a run now before it gets crowded out." I lay there thinking about that and next thing I knew it was 9:00.

Since it was late, I was hungry. My usual breakfast is cooked oat bran with half a cup of yogurt, half a scoop of protein powder, and a serving of canned or frozen fruit all mixed together. Well, I couldn't run for a while after eating that, so I vacuumed including corners, edges, furniture and ceilings.

We drove to daughter Val's where I put our big comforter in her big washer, which including emptying her dryer, putting what was in her washer in her dryer, and folding her dry clothes.

Went to granddaughter Gracie's school to have lunch with her, after stopping at McD's to get her an unhealthy alternative to the school lunch.

Waiting at the end of the school driveway to leave, we saw her dad (our ex-son-in-law) drive by. So we cell-phoned him, he turned around, and we had lunch with him at Arby's.

Back to daughter Val's to switch the quilt to the dryer and start another load of wash.

Back to our camper to do some odds and ends. Change into running clothes, head back toward daughter Val's for half an hour, at which time Steve came along as pre-arranged, picked me up (and Journey), and we drove the rest of the way to Val's, where I took the quilt out of the dryer, switched my current wash load to the dryer, put in another wash load, dried myself off, changed my clothes (put my running clothes in the washer), and we set off to our ex-son-in-law's place where our 2 grandkids were going after school, to spend some more time with them.

Back to Val's to do the washer-to-dryer switch one more time.

Then to daughter Avery's (about 15 min. from Val's) for dinner with her and her husband Scott. Yummy dinner, steak for Steve and Scott, portabello mushroom caps for Avery and me, plus corn on the cob and mashed potatoes and gravy and wine. Mmmm. Our dog Journey and their dog Sybil played and played. Sybil is an unlikely mutt, supposed to be pit bull and, of all things, wolf. She looks like a yellow dingo. I can see wolf in her. She hasn't a single aggressive bone in her body, just 50% play and 50% loving slob. A wonderful dog. So she and Journey played themselves out.

Then back to Val's to say a final goodbye to grandkids Collin and Gracie, as well as Val and her husband Anthony, and collect the day's laundry, finally. It is so good to have even our queen-size comforter clean (it doesn't fit in normal-size washers like those found in campgrounds.)

Tomorrow we leave for Maryland, where new granddaughter Sarah is imminent. When I think of holding her in my arms, my eyes fill with tears.

And now I'm going to bed.

Training today: 33-minute run, 3.1 miles.

BALTIMORE, OHIO

So we spent 2 nights in Arkansas, one in Tennessee (at Loretta Lynn's Ranch, which is a tourist-trap ripoff, don't bother going), one in Kentucky at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, and last night we arrived in Baltimore OH, where we'll stay till Tuesday, visiting here with our 2 married daughters and their families.
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Training I've gotten in:

• Wednesday, Hurricane Hills, TN: 40-minute run. I didn't measure it.
• Today, Saturday, Baltimore, OH: 70-minute bike, 21 miles, average 18mph, cadence in 90's. WOW! I thought keeping the high cadence would make me slower. It helps that the area is fairly flat, though.

I'd been hoping to start training for 5-day stretches, alternating run and bike days, but it's really hard when we're traveling every day.

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Tomorrow, daughters Valerie and Avery and I are traveling to Maryland to daughter-in-law Jamie's baby shower. Baby Sarah is due May 22, but Jamie's doctor says she could go any day now. She'd be 5 weeks early right now but that was when Abbie was born. The doctor estimates Sarah's weight at 6 pounds, which is what Abbie weighed 5 weeks early.

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Tuesday, we head with the camper to Maryland, where we'll stay 4 or 5 days with the family contingent there, then on to Winchester, VA, for our summer digs. It's good, hilly biking and running (training for SavageMan) and 20 miles from the Appalachian Trail, so I can do some section hiking and make my trail dream start to feel real again.

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On with the show for today. Granddaughter Gracie the gymnast (9) called me while I was out on the bike, wanting to know if I want to go biking in the park with her. Well, of course I do. There's rain supposedly coming but hopefully it will hold off.

Eeee-YUP, WE'RE IN ARKANSAS, ALL RIGHT....

In a quiet private campground for the night, complete with permanent tiny moss-covered RV's, rusty pickup trucks minus their wheels, and, as I've discovered, no internet access, even with our Sprint aircard, so, by thetime I'm able to post this, we'll be in Tennessee.












Actually, the overnight part of the campground is very nice, and there's a very pretty large pond where you can go fishing, if you're so inclined, which I would be if I had the gear.















A couple of tractor-trailer drivers live here, with their rigs parked outside their little campers. One has this bumper sticker on the back:















and a Christian fish on his driver's side door. Gotta love it.


Last evening, our last night in Texas, an armadillo crossed the road in frontof our truck, the first live one we'd seen. I had begun to suspect there wereno live armadilloes, just dead ones flattened in the road, like possums back home.I figure the armadillo is the southern version of the possum.


Why did the chicken cross the road?
To show the possum it was possible.

Tomorrow we move on, heading for the Loretta Lynn Campground, inside her ranch inTennessee. Very cool. We'll be getting there just the day after her birthday (today,which, by the time I post this, will be yesterday.) She's 71 years old today (yesterday.)Maybe they'll be having a birthday special: free campsites in her campground all week.


Right.

BAD EGO DAY

I've been asking myself: Do I have the right to throw some stuff into a backpack and go off by myself for a 3-6month vacation in the woods?

What makes me think I'm so special?

Then, again, if I'm not that special, it shouldn't make that much difference to the world if I'm gone for a few months.

So I'll keep on planning it anyway. With as little expense as possible. One thing I do want to do, and maybe one of the reasons I want to hike the Appalachian Trail, is to make a statement: it's not just for affluent folks who can buy all the highest-tech, state-of-the-art, featherweight equipment to make it easy to go out and play at living a spartan lifestyle.

I want to need to depend on myself, my creativity, my ingenuity, my resourcefulness, my stubbornness, my endurance.

"Grandma" Emma Gatewood was the first female to thru-hike the AT all in one end-to-end trip. She was 67 at the time (back in the 1950's.) She sewed up a denim duffel bag, into which she threw a change of clothes, a raincoat, a wool Army blanket, a plastic shower curtain for emergency shelter, and some crackers, beef jerky, and cheese. Then she waved good-bye to her family and set out hiking in U.S. Keds.

She made it.

SAVAGEMAN TRAINING HAS STARTED!

After 2 weeks' rest from biking, I started again today, with a 26-miler around the Flower Mound, TX area. It was a beautiful ride, nice open roads with cattle, wildflowers, and very little traffic.

SavageMan training is on!!

My plan is to run twice a week and bike 3 times, with 2 days off. When we get to Winchester, VA, where we'll be spending the summer and fall, I'll add swimming to my running days. We'll be in transit till then, and in Winchester there's a park with a 25m indoor pool, 50m outdoor pool, and gym -- $2 admission for senior citizens.

Sheesh, senior citizen. 'Fraid so.

I downloaded a half-ironman training program from Trifuel.com, but it schedules 6 training days a week and I know I need 2 days off, preferably consecutively. So I'll be modifying it.

So yesterday I ran to the store and walked back with my groceries in a backpack. Today I biked. Tomorrow, I'll run -- maybe 40 minutes. I didn't time or measure yesterday's run but I'm sure the round trip was at least 4 miles, so a 40-minute run tomorrow is reasonable.

Winchester, by the way, has been home to Patsy Cline, Willa Cather, and George Washington, among others. My favorite of the 3? Patsy, of course!

PRACTICE HIKE

We needed a few groceries. The store is a couple miles away, maybe 3.

I ran over, and walked back, with the groceries in my daypack.

I've been on a 2-week hiatus from running and biking, to rest and build myself up. I did break down and run 3 miles the morning of the wedding but other than that I've been layin' low.

Why fire up the diesel-guzzling truck to go to the store 2 or 3 miles away for groceries that will easily fit in my backpack? And when I need to learn to shop for things that will go in a backpack, when I do food re-supply trips on the AT?

Instead of a shopping cart, I carried one of those hand-baskets, to keep tabs on how much weight I was accumulating.

Here's what easily went into the pack, with room (and weight) to spare:

Half a gallon of milk
A dozen eggs
4-lb. bag of sugar
1-lb. bag of dry beans
Stick of deodorant
Wedge of Brie cheese
Box of 20 garbage bags
12-pack of Pop-Tarts
2 PayDay bars (buy one, get one free)
Loaf of French bread (in side pocket to keep from getting smashed)

It was easy, I saved fuel and money, burned up some calories, and started something new for myself:

If it's 3 miles or less, I'm going on foot.

Later, I'll up that to 4 miles.

Why drive when I can run and/or walk?

AMERICAN AIRLINES

Well, hopefully my daughter Avery is on board her plane and ready to depart Dallas/Fort Worth in 5 or 10 minutes.

American Airlines grounded her 4:45p.m. flight yesterday along with a few thousand others nationwide. They scheduled her for an 11:00a.m. flight today, which was also cancelled. They scheduled her for a 5:25p.m. flight aboard American Eagle, which, according to a call from her half an hour ago, was expected to start boarding momentarily and depart on time.

There is a severe-thunderstorm/tornado watch for the area but nothing happening right now. I don't think there's any reason for a weather delay.

Hopefully our daughter will arrive back in Columbus, OH, later this evening. She says she's been in a better situation than a lot of people: we were nearby to take her to, and from, and to, and from, and to the airport with just 20-minute drives, and to stay with overnight. She's not like many parents with tired kids, or elderly people, with no recourse but to sleep in the airport.

She also says that, given the circumstances, the AA personnel at the airport have been so courteous, efficient, knowledgeable, and accommodating, that she will probably fly American again.

It was great to have her for the unexpected overnight.

It's occurred to me that Avery's flight plans are like a lot of my plans in my life.... I seem to have trouble getting them off the ground.

TENTING TONIGHT

Photo from Eureka! tents

I have pitched my tent on the grass next to our camper and plan to sleep out there tonight. It looks like this one, but a different color. My husband is away for the night, so indulging my hiking/camping/backpacking/AT obsession tonight will not annoy him. The weather is going to be balmy, 70* F. I've got the tent situated so the breeze will blow in through the no-see-um-netted door. ("No-see-ums" are little flying bugs that bite. So small you don't see them. The netting is fine enough to keep them out.)

Our nephew's wedding in Dallas on Saturday kept us busy the whole weekend, with seeing relatives, meeting new ones from the other side of the family, and the bride's family as well, since now they're relatives too :-) It was a huge, beautiful, super-festive wedding, one to remember for years and years.

Steve is still with family, at his sister's (groom's mother) vacation home. I'm not there because I'm sick again. Red goopy eyes and coughing up crud (the stuff I cough up and the stuff coming out my eyes look like the same stuff.) I need a couple days to rest up.

But I'm going to sleep outside in my tent, which makes me happy. I can pretend I'm on the trail. I don't feel all that sick, just have this creepy cough (couple weeks this go-around)and conjunctivitis (woke up with it the morning after the wedding). Just like what I had before the Austin Marathon, without feeling bad. I'm tired of being sick. It's been going on for 2 months. I'm going to the doc for bloodwork when we get settled again at the end of the month.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

image source

In my post "New Year's Day," I used an image I found via a Google Image search with the keyword "sunrise." I "lift" images off the internet all the time this way and presume others do, too. I never thought much about it.... I assumed that they were sort of public domain, or something.

They aren't necessarily.

I received this comment on that post, from Digital Revolutions, a design-resource company which creates graphics and screen wallpaper :

Hello - Please avoid directly linking to my "Sunrise" image without at least crediting or linking to my site.

Oops. I'm sorry.

I went to his (or her?) site and attempted to use the "Contact Us" button to let them know I had now credited and linked it. However, I kept getting a message that I'd responded incorrectly to the "Challenge Question" (like a word verification, I guess) which was not being displayed in the contact form, so I was unable to contact them.

Anyway, it's done, it's credited, it's linked, I've learned. If I use someone else's image, I'll be crediting them. If someone used one of my own photographs, maybe finding it via a search or on my blog, I would want credit. I'm proud of my work and if someone else likes it, I want them to tell the world where they got it. Once a friend (who was also my boss) asked me to make a collage of photos of her niece. I worked hard on it in Photoshop, erasing out the cluttered backgrounds and replacing them with pastel gradient ones, added feminine little graphics, was pleased with the result, she loved it and paid me $50, and then color-Xeroxed copies of it on photo paper for the family. I felt affronted, maybe even a little violated.

So I understand and I apologize.

I feel overwhelmed, though, at the idea of going back through 3 years of posts and crediting and linking all the images not my own that I've used to illustrate what I've witten. But I'll be doing it from now on, and encourage my readers to do the same.

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How to do it: Life's Journey asked how to creat a "byline." Here's how I've started doing it:

While writing the post, under the image type "Image Source:" or whatever words you choose, followed by the name of the website it came from. Like this: "Image Source: Website." You get this information by clicking the image in Google, which makes the image pop up with the website of its origin. Copy that. Then highlight "Website" and copy the link. It will create a link to that website. For the byline, in the toolbar I select small type and italics. Hope this helps :-)

WHEW, MORE BIKING

So today I went with our neighbors on an Austin Cycling Association group ride. Choices were 33, 45, or 69 miles. We did the 45.

That gives me 140 miles of biking this week.

Last week, with two round-trip commutes and one one-way, I did 80.

The week before, the same, 80.

Before that, I'd been doing 48 miles a week in 3 one-way commutes.

I feel like I've done a LOT of cycling this week. My quads can feel it. But they don't hurt.... they feel strong. Hope that holds! I guess it will, if I keep up the biking!