Allentown Hiking Club shelter to George W. Outerbridge shelter. Easy 16.5 miles. Breezy, blue-skied day, some solo rock hopping and mountaintop hiking. Dipped into the shelter just in time to beat the four o'clock afternoon rain. Cosmo was already there and we were joined a minute later by two others, one a hiker named "Waterproof."…Read more May 14: The Importance of Crossing Lines

Left Windsor Furnace this morning to head for Allentown Hiking Club shelter some 16 miles down the path. The skies were an ominous gray from the outset and at noon the rain started coming down. Cosmo and I ducked into Eckville shelter to dodge the rain. The place was fit for a king. It was fully…Read more May 13: 500 Miles and Friends From the Other Side of the Globe

May 12 - Made the five miles to Port Clinton by 11. On the fringe of town was a quiet railroad, the trains that once ran it forgotten and graffiti-emblazoned alongside the tracks.  Cosmo and I wandered behind an old couple for a while, wondering in an unworried sort of way if they were heading…Read more May 12: Class Versus Crass 

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