May
20, 1981 - Wednesday From Gonzo!s Appalachian
Trail journal
I got
up from a good night’s rest at the Walasii Inn. We had slept
in as long as we could, but it seems we always tend to get up early.
Had breakfast of one bag of Brown sugar & cinnamon oatmeal.
My Summer Sausage has disappeared! I looked around everywhere and
could not find it. Although there was only less than half of a stick
left, it was precious to me. Suddenly it hit me - the dog! Nothing
I could do about it now, so I went to the store and mailed 5 post
cards and bought a Pepsi, freeze dried lasagna, poly tubes, honey,
crackers, raisins and a few candy bars (remember, only 24 hours
before I had purchased $17 worth of supplies – we must have
been packing over 50 pounds of gear and food! Lesson 1 - don’t
carry so much food, unless you are not carrying much of anything
else). Called home this morning and just caught Mom before taking
Jay to Springfield. Nice to talk to her again.
It was foggy again this morning. No views today. We could tell that
we would have had some if it were not so foggy. Nice temperature
to hike in, but drizzling a little most of the day. The guide book
says we went 11 miles today. Dreary day. At least we were at a shelter
tonight (Low Gap Shelter). I Had mac & cheese again tonight,
but this time it was good – 1.5 packets of cheese - .5 left
over from last night when we had chili & noodles from the mac
& cheese. Bill made some instant lemon pudding and gave me a
cup. Not bad. Bill and I have both been trying to look at all
the things people take for granted, like water, which we have
to find and drink from a mountain spring - and things like
toilets, fast transportation, food, etc. We are sharing the
shelter with Joel and John, I think from Indianapolis. Joel seems
to really know about backpacking, and he sure eats well. He has
backpacked all over and has been telling us a lot of things. We
learned about using moleskin bandaids to help relieve blister problems
and to help prevent them as well. Unfortunately, we did not have
any. I hope we can stay with them for a few days to learn more,
but that probably means 14 mile days. If we start early maybe we
can do it. It looks like tomorrow we will shoot for a 15 miler –
I hope I can make it. I also hope it stops raining and clears up.
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