ADVENTURE READING

Here's a National Geographic Adventure magazine list of the 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time.

I feel really educated and worldly because I've actually read two of them:
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (#9 on the list!) about a fatal climb of Mt. Everest and the factors contributing to the disaster.
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger about the loss of Gloucester swordfishing boat Andrea Gail in the north Atlantic triple-storm of 1991.

I would like to nominate two others:
Miles from Nowhere by Barbara Savage. A young woman's account of her 2-year journey with her husband, around the world on bicycles. One of my favorite reads ever. The author, however, never got to see it in print. As the book was going to press, Barbara was killed in a cycling accident while training for a triathlon. This information is provided in the text on the back of the book, so I'm not giving away anything.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston. Utah climber's harrowing story of being imprisoned in a canyon for 6 days, his arm pinned by a rock to a canyon wall, and his hair-raising account of how he finally freed himself. I remember hearing about that one on the news when it happened.

And my favorite account of an Appalachian Trail thru-hike by a woman:
Walking Home by Kelly Winters. She describes in dreamy, poetic prose the life trauma and confusion that led to her hike, and her journey to finding herself on the way to Maine.

Anyone care to cast a vote on their favorite true adventure book?

TRAIL GEAR FROM AN UNLIKELY PLACE

I'll tell you what, I never expected to get trail gear at church.

Sunday was the day after Valentine's Day. The pastor made mention of love and gifts and flowers and such, and then at the end of the service surprised us (or maybe just me) by saying that they had gifts for the ladies. (Don't men get Valentine's gifts?)

Anyway, they handed all the ladies these nice little drawstring pouches made of a sturdy sheer red nylon fabric. Always alert to such things, I thought, "Ditty bag! I could use that for toiletries in my backpack!" (I'm not taking, like, a full makeup kit or anything, but toothbrush, contact solution, antiperspirant, a few things like that.)




It's even the same color as my backpack.



I saw that it had candy and a couple other things in it. I waited till I got home to look at the loot. I gave Steve the chocolate and kept the peppermints. Then looked at the rest of it.

Someone must have been collecting hotel freebies, 'cuz there were things in Crowne Plaza packages. There was a black satin eyecover (or maybe that was for Valentine's hanky-panky) and, of all things..... a pair of ear plugs!!!!

Now, if you don't know the Appalachian Trail and its shelters, let me tell you ear plugs are pretty much essential. Most of the time I'll be sleeping in my tent, but if the weather is really bad, I'll stay in a shelter. These are 3-sided lean-to's where everyone just sleeps side-by-side on the floor. Men outnumber women (as in just about any endurance athletic sport) and men snore. So anyone planning to use shelters at all generally packs a pair of ear plugs. And then there are other night sounds..... one hiker counted a whip-poor-will's reps of its piercing call at 180 before it stopped for breath. Personally I'm anxious to hear whip-poor-wills but at close range it could get tiresome, I guess.

I got a neat little drawstring ditty bag and EARPLUGS in church!! Is this God's nod of approval for my hiking plans?

Next there was a little spray bottle of something, and I said to Steve, "What's this? Bear repellent?" But it was linen spray. I won't take that.... bears like sweet-smelling stuff.

Never expected to get cool trail gear at church. Gotta wonder about that. Again.... was it a sign?

Miss Rachel thinks I'm fabulous! She said so, and nominated me to her list of Fabulous Bloggers. Here's what you have to do once awarded: first, list 5 things you're "addicted" to, then bestow the honor on five of your favorite bloggers.

Blogger won't let me upload a picture right now. Blogger doesn't think I'm fabulous :-(

Anyway, 5 things I'm addicted to:

1. Email. That's one reason I don't blog more. I'm "only" on I think 7 lists, but they take time. I don't know why I stick with some of them. They're not that important to me. That makes this a lesson in choosing what's important: email lists that aren't important, or a blog that is the chronicle of my life? Seems like a no-brainer, so why is it so hard to sign off the lists? There's one list of close women friends I'd never leave. And there's Women Hikers. And Appalachian Trail Hikers. And Preserving Foods, where I learn a lot about dehydrating. Then there's an Atkins Diet list, which I should sign off since I'm not following it anymore; a Diet Survivors list, where you do introspection to learn how your eating habits and metabolism have been screwed up by dieting.


2. Food. Sweets. Sugar. Which is why I tried Atkins, why I can't follow it, why I'm on the Diet Survivors list. I just want to quit worrying about food and eating.


3. Introspection. My husband says my life would be a whole lot simpler if I didn't think so much. I can't help it. I always think of the repercussions of every action and reaction, worry that I've offended someone, worry that if I'd done differently then XYZ would or wouldn't have happened, think about what-if.... I drive myself nuts.


4. I liked that Miss Rachel is addicted to mascara. I should be, too. I haven't worn makeup in ages, I who, say, 5-7 years ago, would rather have gone without my blouse than without my eye makeup. I heard a presumably Southern saying once: "If you're ever in a situation -- and I can't imagine what that situation might be -- where you have to choose between wearing ONLY your underpants or ONLY your mascara, choose the mascara." I've been going around looking like a drone.


5. In the same vein.... lip balm. Or lip gloss. Or vaseline. I have to have something on my lips or I go crazy with discomfort. I've heard all that stuff is addictive b/c it sucks moisture out of your lips making you need the stuff even more. But you can bet I'll be taking lip gloss on the Trail. If anyone wants to send me a care package, be sure to include lip balm, especially some that has a little shine to it, but if no shine, then plain old Chapstick will do fine. I can't live without it.

Now, who to tag. That may have to wait.... I've been so hung up on email that I haven't read my friends' blogs, so I don't know who's already been tagged. Stay tuned. I will tag some. I have to find them first!

NOVELTIES

Talk about MacGyvering. I guess someone's fishing rod broke (must have been a big one!) and they took the end of the broken rod and jammed it onto a stick to keep on fishing.

This is just one of the things I saw today while hiking 4 hours -- about 11 or 12 miles -- in New Orleans along Lake Ponchartain. With a 20# pack. I'm working up to longer days and a 30# pack. Seven-and-a-half weeks to go.

So I hike alongside the streets with this pack that extends from my head to my butt, and a hiking stick, and odd clothes, and no one gives me a second glance. Maybe I'm so weird no one wants to mess with me.

One man did ask me, "Are you a camper?" I told him, "I'm getting ready to hike the Appalachian Trail." "Oh," he said. "Where's that at?"

Other amazing sights today:

The hillside of a levee all covered with white clover blossoms, which, as a Northerner, I associate with summertime. Their subtle, delicate fragrance glistened in the air and made me feel the peace and freedom of childhood summers.

A whole flock of snowy egrets flying inland from the lake to a grassy park.

A little boy tossing a net over a bridge fishing for mullet.

Funny stuff:

A bright golden-yellow port-a-pot called "Pot O' Gold."

Gross stuff:

Trash. Trash. Trash. I can't believe the trash around here. The usual beer cans and bottles, snuff cans, disposable diapers, McDonald's cups and bags, and various detritus still from Hurricane Katrina: bits of building material, PVC pipe pieces, shingles, sheets of styrofoam. And, oddly, a fair number of spent condoms and tampon tubes. Now.... how do these come to be roadside litter? Do people use these items while in their car and then toss them out the window, or what? Maybe they washed ashore in the hurricane, too.

The hurricane damage is still very much in evidence. Downed palm trees still lying along the lake. Homes boarded up and empty. In the residential area near our lakeside campground, I'd say that of every three houses, one is lived in, one is in the process of repair but still unliveable, and one is empty, trashed, and abandoned.

A family is staying at our campground having fled the recent ice storm in Arkansas. They lived on a mountain and the trees came crashing down on the house they'd just built and moved into 5 months earlier. They got some old junk RV and hit the road looking for work. Found some in New Orleans, cleaning up after the hurricane that was 3 years ago.

I've got a new injury. Carpal tunnel injury. I won't say "syndrome" because I don't think it's going to be a chronic thing; it's the result of pushing a lawn mower 6 hours a day for 2 days straight. My hands started to tingle and fall asleep after that, especially at night. I switched from mowing to digging but that wasn't enough rest.... woke up at night feeling like my hands were in hot water with dead fingers. I got one of those carpal tunnel splints at the drug store for the worst one, my left, and it's a miracle. The very first night it didn't wake me up at all, although the other hand was numb in the morning. They're both much better now, although I'm still wearing the splint on my left.

I said to Steve, "Geez, my feet, my teeth, a panic attack that I thought was a heart attack.... what's next???" He said, "This isn't anything, you can hike with one hand."

That's my man :-)

I WANNA BE THIS TOUGH

I found this yesterday while digging crabgrass out of the shrubbery beds in the campground.

Steve said, "So? The root grew through the stick."

I see one of nature's miracles of survival, a metaphor for my life.

URBAN FLATLAND HIKING

It's a challenge living in New Orleans and preparing for hiking the Appalachian Trail. There are no forests, no mountains, no hills.

At least not any natural ones. What I do is, I hike up and down the levees. Up one side, down the other, up, down, up, down, zigzagging the length of the levee. Here's one of them, with Journey at the bottom for scale:

I think I posted about climbing the levee before. I took our hand-held GPS and measured the distance from bottom to top (about 50 feet) and the elevation change (18 feet). This works out to a 36% grade. Fifty feet isn't very far, but to go 50 feet up, 50 feet down, up, down, up, down, enough times to make a mile.... next day I can tell I've done something.

After I've traversed the levee, I keep on walking alongside Lake Shore Drive, the lake being Lake Pontchartrain. Lake Shore Drive is very pretty; it's here that I find my "forests."

I should have a picture of the lake shore for you, but I don't. Next time!

I do occasionally have to ford a "creek," though, on my way home, if it's rained recently:

So I don't have any wilderness paths to follow, but I make do. I'm hiking 5 - 7 miles at a time, with a backpack. I started with 10 pounds of stuff in the pack and have worked up to 20. I'm aiming for hikes of 8 miles every other day with 30#. I'm still watching my Achilles tendons closely. Sometimes they feel a little sore but they're fine later on, and there's been no swelling. In fact, swollen knots that the podiatrist told me were scar tissue and would never go away..... hav gone away. One of my tendons (ironically, the one that was torn) is now completely smooth, and the other one nearly so.

I hope they stand up to day-after-day mountain-hiking with my home on my back. I start 8 weeks from tomorrow.

STILL TO DO....

Maybe I'll feel less-overwhelmed if I make a list. To make it tangible.

Here's a start. I'll probably add to it in the next two months.

1. Keep on drying foods. Finish carrots and cabbage, start broccoli.
2. Organize dried foods, pack into week's-worth bags, organize for mailing.
3. Make list of approximate mail-stops based on approximate hiking progress.
4. Clean out closet. Steve wants "my" side while he's home alone 'cause he doesn't have to crawl over the bed to reach it.
5. While cleaning closet, organize my stuff and throw out a lot.
6. Go over contents of backpack, re-organize.
7. Make list of weekly groceries for Steve to buy and send me.
8. Update immunizations for dog and cat so Steve won't have to worry about it.
9. Or forget that one and let him do it.
10. Buy headlamp.
11. Buy new battery for camera.
12. Buy second memory card for camera (so Steve and I can exchange full and empty ones.)
13. Go over contents of backpack, re-organize.
14. Sew loops onto Tyvek ground cloth so I can pitch it as a tarp if I want to.
15. Sew extra gear pockets into tent.
16. Re-waterproof rain gear and tent.
17. Re-seam seal tent.
18. Grow out hair to no-fuss ponytail. Stick it out thru in-between stage. Do not cut now.
19. Make sure enough family and friends are watching out for my mother.
20. Finish woodburning hiking poles with family/friends' signatures.
21. Get snail-mail addresses for postcards.
22. Shop for sample/travel size toiletries.
23. Order 6-months' supply of contacts.
24. Fill prescriptions.
25. Make sure all adult children are on birth control -- NO ONE is to have baby till Nov.
26. Arrange automatic bill-pay for my Achilles physical therapy.
27. Go over contents of backpack, re-organize.
28. Spazz over whether I have the right assortment of early-spring clothing.
29. Prepare box of stuff I'll need (or might need) Steve to send me later on: different shoes, warm-weather sleeping bag, warm-weather clothes, different or extra xyz's
30. Go over contents of backpack, re-organize.
31. Get traveler's checks. Also will carry some cash and bank card.
32. Go no-mail on my email groups. Give Steve access to groups so if I get killed by bear he can notify them.
33. Worry that I'm not ready.

That's a start. I'll add more if I think of more......

IN A SLUMP

I seem to be going through a few days of feeling unmotivated to do anything about my AT hike, now coming up in 9.5 weeks. I don't want to dry food, I don't want to plan my town stops, I don't want to go out and train (last week I put in four 7+ mile hikes up and down the New Orleans levees with a 15-pound pack.)

I just feel tired. Maybe I've been doing so much towards it and thinking about it so much and talking about it so much, I feel like I've already done it or something and just want to rest.

Maybe it's because I've run out of foods to dehydrate until I go shopping again. Maybe it's because I only have 2 months to get my food all done and finalize everything and I feel overwhelmed..... withdrawing is my common response to overwhelmed-ness.

I do have brown rice cooking on the stove. Cooked and dehydrated, it rehydrates nice and fluffy in 5 minutes in hot water. The soak-all-day method didn't work. I'm glad I tried it ahead of time.

Yesterday I spent all day reading a novel. I think I'll just chill one more day today, making a grocery list for tomorrow, and then start with the food again.

Tree in Time

Tree in Time
Originally uploaded by imagainst_the_wind

It's not about the Appalachian Trail.... but I was going through some of my photos and thought I'd post it. I've got so many photos, from so many places, and some of them are good.... I'm going to start to go public. So far it's the only one on my Flickr page, but I'm going to add more.

Why I started this now, when I've got so many AT preparations on my plate, is beyond me. But that's why they won't be coming thick and fast :-)

DRYING AND PLANNING

The push is on.

Each tray is 13 inches diameter. This is about 4 pounds of carrots and 3 pounds of cabbage, lightly precooked (to stop enzyme action that could cause spoilage even in fully-dried food) and ready to go into the dehydrators. Each tray is 13 inches diameter; one dehydrator holds 4 and the other, 5.

I have a list of what I will need to finish dehydrating and bag up in the next 10 weeks, based on a 6-month or 24-week trip:

12 cups dried measure of each of the following:

• Carrots
• Cabbage
• Corn
• Broccoli
• Green beans
• Turnip/collard greens (yes, I like these, and yes, they rehydrate well!)

This will give me 1/2 cup dry = 1 cup reconstituted per week of each... a different vegetable each day for 6 days. The seventh day I plan to eat in town.

That's just the vegetables. I'll be mixing them with:

• Dry beans (need 24 cups dry measure = 1 cup per week = 2 X 1 cup rehydrated.) I buy them dry, soak & cook, dehydrate, and end up with "instant" dry beans. I'm not drying any more of them, though, since I discovered that lentils and split peas, after soaking 3-4 hours, cook in 5 minutes. I'll put them into a jar with water at lunchtime and heat them up for dinner.
• Brown rice (I'll need about 5 pounds for the same number of servings; soak & cook like lentils)
• 24 cups tomato sauce = 1 cup per week; I'll dry it and flake it in the blender and divvy it up; it's less expensive than 72 tomatoes (3/week)
• 8 pounds hamburger = 1 serving/week of 1/3 pound
• 8 pounds ground turkey = 1 serving/week of 1/3 pound
• Onions -- however many it takes to make 6c. dried minced onions

Then there's fruit. I don't have this fully-planned yet. Just something to mix into my oatmeal, basically. Probably:

• Applesauce "leather"
• Banana slices
• Maybe pineapple rings

That's just the stuff I'm going to dry myself.

So my dinners will include a couple servings of meat a week; complete protein the other days from the beans/rice mixture, plus cheese (buy en route); and a different vegetable every day, along with onions and tomato sauce.

I'll save breakfast, lunch, and snack plans for another post.

~Sigh~

I'm tired just from making the list. Burned up a pound of calories right there, I think.

NO BROCCOLI

I've been to the supermarkets on our side of New Orleans looking for family-size bags of frozen broccoli to put in my food dehydrator, but I can't find anything bigger than a one-pound bag.

But you can get bags of frozen okra big enough to last until the Second Coming.

We're in Louisiana.

Oh -- yes, dried-and-rehydrated broccoli is good. I've tried it out.

WHO'S ON MY HIKING POLES?

What I'm doing is, I have one hiking pole for family, one for friends. I've had the opportunity to see most of my family and have them personally sign my "family" hiking pole. Then I wood-burn over the signature to make it wear-proof. I've got 4 generations on my "family" pole. Granddaughter Abbie, then 5, signed her name and then her yet-unborn sister Sarah's name. Sarah's almost 8 months old now.

My "friends" pole is still relatively unsigned. Who wants to go with me on the Appalachian Trail? I gotta get movin' on gettin' these names on. Spread the word.... my blog readership isn't very large, so any of my readers who have a large following, get the word out.... the more friends I have with me, the better!

If you want to be on my hiking pole, write a comment telling me so! I've got ten weeks left :-)

ANOTHER BUMMER

This one involving the dehydrating of a 6-lb can of green beans.

Preamble: it's very windy in New Orleans today, steady at 28mph gusting to 40.
Preamble Part 2: Around the front of our RV, we have a "skirt," like this,




that provides an enclosed storage space with protection from wind and rain.

Supposedly.

The rest of the story:
Yesterday I posted about my bin of Ziploc-bagged dehydrated food getting wet under said canopied storage space, where rain came in around the top of the skirt right over my bin. I saved some of the food.

Today, in the wind, the skirt flapped around so much (guess we hadn't gotten around to securing it to the ground yet) that it knocked my running dehydrator right off the shelf. Luckily, it didn't break. Unluckily, 4 trays of nearly-done green beans flew onto the ground. Into gravel.

Now, the loss of a $4 can of beans isn't that big a deal, but 3 quarts of beans on the ground rehydrating in the humidity and predicted heavy rain is. Rotting beans on the ground, ew.

So I took a colander out and picked all the little bitty dried-up beans out of the gravel. Little-bitty means about the thickness of coffee stirrers. An inch long. Strewn around in the gravel. It took awhile to pick them all up. And as long as I'd picked them up, I might as well try to salvage them, so I rinsed them off in the colander until I was sure they were gravel-free, and stuck 'em back in my *indoor* dehydrator to dry them off. Can't just let them air-dry b/c they'll start to rehydrate.

I have an indoor dehydrator, which is quiet, and another one, which lives outdoors under the skirt because it makes a noise like a stove's hood-exhaust fan.

~Sigh~

I guess it's not as much of a disaster as, say, a raccoon or bear getting into a whole week's worth of food while I'm hiking. Which is why you hang your food bag overnight from tree branches or, where provided, special "bear cables" or even (as in New Hampshire) lock it up in metal boxes secured with chains.

If the Trail is as much fun as getting this food-trying thing figured out, it's going to be fun :-)

HONESTLY....

Sometimes I've thought I don't blog much because I don't have anything to blog about. But today I decided it's because I have too *much* to blog about. For days I've been thinking, blog about getting to New Orleans, blog about dehydrating food for my AT hike, blog about the thunderstorms, blog about finding a hill to hike in flat, flat New Orleans which lies 8 feet below sea level. Or the aforementioned dehydrated food spending the night under the one place where our storage enclosure leaks, and the ziploc bags leaking, accidentally re-hydrating some of it. Thankfully I only had a few days' worth of food in that bin and I was able to re-dehydrate some of it.

And as I was thinking about all this today while returning to the campground from walking/hiking/hill-climbing, trying to decide how and when to organize it all into a blog post or several, I saw a driver's license in the sandy grass by the side of the road. I picked it up and noticed a credit card a couple feet away. Same name. Hmm. What else is here? Did someone's wallet blow off their car roof or something? Found another credit card. Then I saw a soggy PlayStation box nearby and thought, did they lose a PlayStation too?? No.... inside was the purse that the cards had fallen from. More cards with the same name were in the box with the purse.

I picked it up and carried it the remaining quarter-mile or so to our camper. I started feeling nervous... I hoped the woman wasn't missing and the perp had dumped her purse. I found a business card belonging to the owner of the license and called. She was alive and well. Whew, relief. The purse had been stolen last week. Amazing to me that her credit cards were still in it.

Long story short, she came to the campground, the local police came to the campground, took my info, took her info, she got the purse back. The policeman was very nice and made the whole issue sort of fun, actually, believe it or not. The lady pushed a $20 bill on me; I refused. I said "Give it to the March of Dimes or something." She stuck it in my pocket and said, "I'm giving it to you; you give it to them if you want to."

Actually I guess if my purse was stolen and someone found it and called me and I got it back I'd probably give them twenty bucks, too. It certainly wasn't necessary.

4 days here and already I've gotten involved in something weird. First the transmission in the truck, delaying our trip by a day; then the broken hanger under the camper; now an encounter with the police over stolen property. This is going to be an interesting winter.

MEANER THAN A JUNKYARD DOG

Well, he looked mean, but he wasn't.

We left Tennessee, um, I guess it was yesterday morning, and stayed uneventfully near Birmingham, AL overnight. There were no amenities other than electric, water, and sewer hookups at that campground, but for $15, what do you want?

So this morning we left AL, and drove across the lower part of Mississippi towards New Orleans.

I swear this trip is cursed. We stopped for diesel fuel, and on his walkaround check Steve discovered a broken spring hanger on the camper. He got a car-repair/welder's business card from the truck stop. He called, the man was willing to service our rig on New Year's Day, and the fun began.

This was somewhere in Southern Mississippi. We drove to where the repair guy said he'd meet us. We waited. A man approached our truck on foot, making eye contact and waving. He had old dirty clothes, a grizzled 3-day beard, no teeth. Steve said, "I hope that's not our guy..." The fellow came to Steve's window and held out his hand. Steve shook it and said, "Are you Joe?" "Naw, I ain' Joe," the man said. "You jus' look like nice folks an' I didn' get no Christmas presents and I spent las' night in a cardboard box an' I bin wearin' the same cloes 4 months and I'm jes' lookin' for someone t' help me some...." Sounds like how I'll be living a few months from now, only in a thin nylon tent instead of a sturdy box, but we gave him two bucks and wished him well, and closed the window.

Soon the real Joe arrived, in a vinyl-top Cadillac that had seen better days. It had a lot of missing parts.

This is the car-repair guy? Yup. He looked at the broken hanger and said, "Yeah, I kin fix 'at, y'all follow me." Journey didn't like him much, growled and whined. Come to think of it, I don't think Journey's ever seen a black person. Forgive me for saying "black" but no doubt Journey just saw a black man, I mean literally a man who was black, and this gave her pause. Plus, I don't care if someone calls me a white woman, but let's get on with the story.

So Joe drives his has-been Cadillac through a maze of back streets through questionable neighborhoods where some people had bars on their windows, others were boarded up, and most had plastic or duct tape where one or more of their car windows had been.
After a number of turns, we arrived at Joe's repair establishment.

The next-door neighbor's front yard, car's rear window replaced with tablecloth.

There was a lot of debris in the yard. You can't really see this, but the weight plates back there behind the mirror say "Gold's Gym." So did the weight bench. No doubt Gold's was getting new stuff and sold their old equipment for a reasonable price.

OK, on to the dog. The repair yard was fenced, and inside the yard was a pit bull chained to a dog box with a chain big enough to hold the Titanic. Just for good measure, there was barbed wire on top of the fence, and along the bottom edge, razor wire, in case anyone including the dog tried to dig under it. No one was getting into this yard.

I like dogs. I watched this pit bull for awhile, noted his body movements as he watched us, and decided to go a little closer. He wagged his tail happily (not stiffly, a defensive sign) and had a friendly look in his eye. I approached cautiously.... you know, pit bull on a monstrous chain in a junky repair yard and all... and he sniffed my knee. I offered my hand and he sniffed it, but then his expression changed and I felt a curl of anxiety and withdrew -- I didn't want him to smell fear or whatever it is that dogs do. I figured he smelled Journey on me. He looked like he'd seen his share of fights. Scars on his face. I backed off.

A few minutes later I went back. He sniffed my hand again, and licked it. Again his expression changed and again I backed off.

This went on a few more times, each time a little more contact until he finally let me scratch him under the chin.

Awhile later he was rolling on his back for a belly rub. When I'd stop, he'd get up and press his body weight against my legs, almost knocking me down just by leaning. He liked me a lot. He slumped to the ground in sorrow when I turned to leave after the welding was done.

You can see the razor wire along the bottom of the fence, and the barbed wire at the top.

So Joe, who was a really nice guy who complained teasingly that I was "spoiling" his dog, spent two hours fixing our broken hanger, on New Year's Day when he probably would rather have been watching the Rose Bowl, and only charged $100. We gave him an extra twenty. He thanked us and smiled that the dog was going to pout the rest of the day wondering where that friendly lady went. He said not many strangers try to pet his dog.

I liked the dog.

We got to New Orleans three hours later than we'd anticipated. Like I said, the trip is cursed. This is our second try at a winter in New Orleans. The first time we started planning it, Katrina hit.

We'll see what the winter brings.

GRANDMA CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN

Well, it doesn't look like much... but that little white thingie top center is a church, and it's at about the same elevation as I am taking the picture.

Rocky Top Campground, Blountville, TN, is built on a mountainside, so of course I had to climb it. It's not a 5,000-ft elevation change or anything, but it's a mountain, and we're about halfway up it, and I saw the hill and the woods all right in our backyard, grabbed my hiking poles and my dog and up we went. It took about 5 minutes but it's the steepest hill I've climbed since June when I blew out my Achilles tendons on the Appalachian Trail.

It actually was a little steep... I found that the rubber tips on my hiking poles don't do very well on dry leaves on a hillside. I'll need more grip. I'm planning to put hex screws into my pole ends for this. I'll cover 'em w/ rubber tips most of the time.And I came down. Then I went back up and took a picture.

The reflex was striking, when I saw where we were and the mountain: I see, therefore I climb. I'm sick and I haven't hiked up a hillside in 6 months but I had to go.

I did not tear any tendons.

Short of breath, though. This bug, whatever it is, shows itself if I do anything but sit around. I'm still hoarse. Luckily, I don't have a dozen mountains to climb today as I will some days on the AT... just 3 months away now.

One was a start. I'm happy.

OR NOT....

Well, we WERE going to leave today. In fact, we got a couple miles down the road before the transmission temperature gauge in the truck shot up to H.

So back to Candy Hill we came, parked the camper, and Steve took the truck to the Ford place. Turns out it was only a sensor problem. That's the good news. Cost $600 to replace it. That's the bad news.

It shot a day of travel, but we'll get going again tomorrow. Guess we'll miss New Year's Eve in New Orleans after all. Oh, well; we'll be there for Mardi Gras.

Although I'm bummed out about the delay and the expense, I guess I'm just as glad not to travel today. While Steve was at the Ford place, I slept for a couple hours. I feel tired and have a headache. Wahhhh..... I haven't been really well since last Saturday, when I developed laryngitis and a cough that got worse until, on the last 2 days before Christmas, I couldn't make a sound and was coughing up crud. Had to tap people on the shoulder to get their attention to whisper something to them. If Steve called to me from another room, I had to go where he was to find out what he wanted, since I couldn't just call, "What?" He'd forget I couldn't talk and think I just hadn't answered.

Anyway, I'm better; coughing only in the morning, not producing any crud, still hoarse but able to talk. Every few days I'm really tired. Today is one of those.

We'll try again tomorrow to leave for New Orleans.

OFF TO NEW ORLEANS; FINISHING THE MUSIC

Tomorrow we pull out and head south.

We won't get to New Orleans till New Year's Eve, but we leave Winchester, VA tomorrow, camper in tow. We'll spend tomorrow night somewhere in Tennessee, the next night in Alabama, and on the 31st, New Years Eve in the Big Easy. Except we'll probably be too tired out to do much celebrating, especially if it means going into town. We'll probably go to bed at 10pm just like every other night.

Today we drove the 2 hours back to Winchester from our son's home in western MD, which was a couple-day stopoff on the way back from our daughters'/grandchildren's homes in Columbus, OH. In the cab of the truck we had my full-length digital piano, my violin, Steve's big duffel bag, my big camera bag and tripod, a high chair in a box (long story, returned it to Wal-Mart in Winchester after buying it in Maryland), our pillows, many Christmas presents, our cat in a cat carrier, and our 50-pound dog (who had about 18 inches of space on the back seat.) Outside in the truck bed were the stand for the piano, my guitar, a food dehydrator from our son (now I have TWO! Yay!) and my AT hiking backpack, full of not only my clothes, but a bag of food that traveled with us, and more presents, all covered with trash bags in case of rain and wedged between all the tool boxes and bins that go with Steve's RV-repair business.

Yesterday my mother and I, with son Jon's help (and a fully-charged computer battery) finally got our music recorded satisfactorily. I'm not saying "perfectly." I have music in every molecule of my body, but I never pursued it, am largely self-taught, and only play my piano a few times a year. Getting this music playable has been a major undertaking. My mother was a superb cellist in her day, but she's nearing 90. The resulting CD, well, you just have to remember it's not Yo-Yo Mah and Van Cliburn. There are goofs. Maybe not noticeable if you don't know every note of the music, but goofs that made Mother and I groan and roll our eyes because we know how we wanted it to sound, how it should sound, and how it didn't, but we finally got acceptable renditions of everything. I am so grateful we had the chance to do it. I was exhausted afterwards. So was she.

It's a keepsake we made for ourselves and for family history as well as for anyone else who's interested. I'll see what I can do to get it on the internet, after we get settled. Our son has still to download it to CD from his computer.

In addition to the cello-piano numbers, we did one, "Ashokan Farewell," with her on the fiddle/violin and me on the guitar. It wasn't the best-ever performance for either of us. Her left shoulder and arm were weakened in a fall a couple years ago, tore her rotator cuff, and it's hard for her to hold the fiddle up. The arthritis in her hands makes it hard for her to navigate the fingerboard. As for the cello, she's diminished by osteoporosis to about the size of the intrument itself. It's hard for her to get it out of the case, let alone set it up, hold it, and draw the bow with full-arm strokes.

I just wanted to get us recorded before she's gone. I feel so much better now that we've got it done.

IT'S MY BIBLE

Like you, I've heard this said hundreds of times about hundreds of references: any number of how-to's. Training programs, internet websites, books (there's even The Triathlete's Training Bible), magazines (remember Elle Wood referring to Cosmopolitan Magazine as "The Bible" in Legally Blonde?)

What is always meant is, the resource that's turned to, read, re-read, memorized, and followed to progress to and attain one's passionate goal. The guide. The source of answers for all possible questions. The ultimate word in how to proceed.

Wonder what people would be like, what the world would be like if everyone's Bible was....

The Bible.

What would I be like? I know the Bible, I've read it cover to cover as well as piecemeal (kind of like a thru-hike compared to a section-hike,) hear bits and pieces most Sundays, have a lot of verses in my memory, and I have one in the King James Version, one in the New International Version, one in French (which I can read and understand) and one in Spanish (which I can't) but I can't say I turn to any of them as often as I do to backpacking magazines, Appalachian Trail books, or Google searches for treating Achilles tendonitis, borderline blood sugar, or high cholesterol.

I'm planning to carry at least my pocket-size New Testament and Psalms on the Trail but.... humiliation here..... also pondering whether how often I'd look at it would justify the few ounces of extra weight. God, it was hard to write that. Ouch.

How would my life become different if my Bible were my Bible?

Merry Christmas, everyone.

FLOP

The recording session.... it didn't go well. Son Jon had new digital-recording software but wasn't expert at using it; took a long time to set it up and get it balanced properly. Plugging in his laptop to AC caused a hum in the recording so we went on battery. The battery kept going low and Jon would plug it in and we'd wait 10 or 20 minutes for enough charge to hopefully record one number, which would get flubbed up by one or the other of us and have to be aborted.

I was nervous being recorded, after months of preparation and anticipation, on the one day available to do it, with just enough battery for one try ("THIS IS IT!!!"), made goofs and we kept having to redo, after waiting again for the battery to charge. We'd get a good one, listen to the result, decide the piano was too strong or the cello not strong enough, readjust the settings, recharge the battery, do it again, I'd miss a few notes and get lost.... frustration added to the goof-up tendency, and we were both getting tired, which also caused compromised performance.

I should say "we all" -- Jon was wonderful but I think he was getting tired and frustrated too. Jon had custody of Abbie and Sarah that day; he'd brought Abbie (almost 6) with him and left Sarah (7 months) with Grandpa, my husband Steve. Abbie, bless her young heart, was an angel: sat absolutely silent on the sofa with coloring books for 3 solid hours, waiting till between recordings to tiptoe to the bathroom, or to tap her dad on the shoulder and whisper something to him.

Then Steve, alone at Jon's house with baby Sarah, called.... "When are you going to be done?" Apparently Sarah was not being as cooperative as Abbie. This did not help my growing agitation. Finally I said, "OK, we're going to have to do this some other time. But can we try just one more time for "The Swan?" Just in case God-knows-what happens, that is the one I really want to have recorded. So we did "The Swan" again. And it went PERFECTLY. And I was so relieved. Until Jon said, "The battery quit just before the end." I asked, "How much was cut?" He said, "All of it. If you don't stop the recording before the computer turns off you lose all of it." ~Sigh~

Well, we're going to be there overnight on the way back to Winchester from Ohio. There will be no rush to get back to Winchester, just spending the night and then hitching up in the morning and heading for New Orleans. So on the 27th we are going to give it another go. Maybe this was a good dry run. Next time I won't have stage fright (although I play well, I do make mistakes and I have never played for anything or anyone except my own pleasure in my own living room). Hopefully Jon will have the battery charged. It won't be his day to have his daughters. We'll all have had a break, and it will go well.

It will go well.

If not.... it'll have to wait till next October after I finish hiking. I can't fly to Maryland from New Orleans to make a recording. And she can't fly with her cello to N.O. to record in our little camper, there's not enough free space anywhere to draw the bow, being as how we already have a piano in there.

And who has the money for a flight, anyway?

It will go well on the 27th. It will go well.

Send us your vibes.