The days are piling up but I'm short on time so I'll give you a drive-by look at what the past couple days have held. May 5 - Cosmo returns. Stayed with his PA relatives, Uncle Lee and Aunt Jan that night because it's near impossible to turn down a sponsored rest day. Egg salad…Read more May 5-11: The Bulleted List I Have Desperately Tried to Avoid

May 3rd. James Fry shelter to Boiling Springs. The day began with my first taste of rock climbing as the trail wound through a jagged, escarpment of protruding boulders, but later took a 180 degree turn, cutting out across flat farmland. In the rural highlands of Pennsylvania the AT becomes just another rough-tilled furrow, braced…Read more May 3: Endless Sky and A Bottomless Glass

On May 2nd, I left Tom's Run in the morning and within an hour I walked past the 2016 halfway point, marked by a patriotic wooden post. If I'd started in Georgia I'd have a measly 1,090 miles to go to complete the whole trail.  But I started in Virginia and didn't need to do…Read more May 2nd: Watching a Storm

Today I walked out of the Trinity Church and into the rain. It was the first Sunday of the new month, and no time for a spiritual skeptic to be staying in the house of the Lord. So I left, leaving two fellow hikers to a 10 AM service hosted by the hostel's devout owners.…Read more May 1st: A Red-Labeled Analysis of Religion (proceed with care)

I woke late on April 30th feeling much recovered from my bout with Rocky's hard-hitting Italian food. And while I still disagreed with God on many things I had to give him his due credit for labeling gluttony as one of the big-10 "bads." As fate would have it I had my chance later that…Read more April 30: Troubled Souls in the House of God

April 28. Walked. And walked and walked. Cosmo is taking time off the trail, and I surprise myself with how quickly I fall inward again. There are trees and stones looming in the ever-present fog. I crunch along on dead branches Silence all day long, broken only by the crack of two eggs as I…Read more April 28-29: Things That Hurt

April 26th was semi-uneventful, but a few quasi-events definitely happened. I say "quasi" events because these weren't your everyday full, well-rounded experiences involving full, well-rounded people. At the Sweet Country Springs gas station a mile east of Keys Gap I met a woman who asked if I used my trekking poles to "bop" girls over…Read more April 26-27: Somedays, Somethings 

April 24th was a standard hiker workday. Woke early, walked solo through a smothering mountain fog with rain jacket on then off then on then off, all day breathing air drunk with the smell of earth and pine needles and something like crushed hemlock. A day of downcast eyes and wandering thoughts. The 25th started…Read more April 24-25: Fighting the Flow 

For anyone who's grown up in contemporary society (yes you, the  Neanderthal with the iPhone) it's clear that speed has become the name of the game. There's no such thing now as "taking it slow." Speed has become inseparable from value, and fast is good, whether it's business, sports, cars communication, or anything else. That…Read more April 22-23: The Big Downshift

Made 14 miles to VA 60 by around two in the afternoon. From there flagged down a Nam vet for a hitch into town. Guess the people who are most likely to help you out are the ones who've been in your shoes. He probably saw the mud-stained duo walking on the roadside and recognized…Read more April 21: Thoughts On Mad Mike and Insanity