A Limp in the Woods...or not (Day 102)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 102: Independence Day, 2013
Party at Bill and Amy’s = 0 miles
Miles to date: 1,437

Zero Appeal

We are tired because we’ve done too much. Too much is what the Appalachian Trail requires. And so a zero day is just what the doctor ordered(1). Just what I needed. Modus Stoperandi for this mellowmaniac.

Yesterday’s closing thoughts--those untrustworthy feelings--had my my mind yearning for a returning to the remote, the antidote. But today my body put its foot down. Both its foots.

My body fancies multiple zero days, since it knows its needs better than any mind or mindset might. But one day off trail is better than none. And anyways, doesn’t multiple days of nothing (multiples of zero) still equal zero?! As in zero rest/recovery?!

Here’s the thing. Whenever I’m off the trail, be it in town or elsewhere man-made, I seem to want nothing more than to be back on it. Back where I belong: backpacking. In the boonies, beyond the bedlam. Come to think of it, it matters not if it’s in the woods or on the ocean, floating a river or toying in alpine environs. It matters not if it’s in the desert or in my dreams--when the clatter fades and I’m outside, I’m exactly where I want to be. And it needn’t require movement. I don’t need to be striding. I don’t need to be climbing. I don’t need to be paddling. I don’t need to be skiing or gliding or drifting. I don’t need to do at all. I just need to be outside. To be. 

Life doesn’t always work out that way, but when it does, I find myself striving to stay out. I learned it’s easier to stay out than to get out, as that urbane Twain wrote.

At the moment, I’m not going anywhere. Embosomed in a suction cup of a couch in Bill and Amy’s lower level, I lay here and work on working up the strength to escape its comfortable clasp. Or not. We joke they bought it at Sofa-King, for it is Sofa-King comfortable.

~~~~~~~~~~

PS: Some lessons of late, in sound-bite form…

* A note to thru-hike hopefuls. The AT isn‘t as bad as you think; it is much, much worse. Hiking the AT is a lot like being in an abusive relationship.

* Sometimes you beat the odds, sometimes the odds beat you. Either way, the AT will leave you beat.

* Out here there are three types of thru-hike hopefuls...

•      The first type is comprised of hikers who struggle with camping: Happy Trampers.
•      The second is made of campers who struggle with the act of hiking: Happy Campers. (Camping: when you spend a small fortune to live like a homeless person!)
•      The third faction struggles with both camping and hiking: Unhappy.

After a century of days on trail, I know of which batch I belong. (“And the forests will echo with laughter,” spake Zarathustra. Or maybe it was Zeppelin.)

*  It is important to remain joyful on the AT, even after you have considered all the facts.

* White blaze inconsistencies are an AT trademark; connecting the dots isn’t as straightforward as you’d think.

* The AT acts as innkeeper to a myriad of Mother Nature’s bastard children, but there’s room for more.

* Sometimes the comfort of a place is eroded by the need to be sociable.

* AT privies are frightening affairs. Unlike bathrooms, they are not the best of reading rooms(2).

* Privies, however, do not require constant plunging; my apologies to Bill and Amy.

* Regardless of wind speed or temperature or precipitation, flies are privy to privies.

* It won’t be long before a tree-fall kills or maims an AT hiker. Payback for all the campfires.

* The AT isn’t necessarily for entertainment purposes.

* Trail angels who charge a fee aren’t trail angels. (Bill and Amy did NOT charge or even ask for a donation, which is why we each left one.)

* Earth becomes a lot less comfortable over time.

* Mosquitoes needn’t be infectious to murder a man. 

* Trailside dine-and-dash is exhausting, but the mosquitoes run this show.

* DEET is deadly, just not to bugs.

* Not all rattlesnakes rattle.

* Never trust mileages on trail signs. Never trust mileages from mouths.

* Humidity turns heat into hell. The sun sets and little changes.

* The sleeping bag company calls themselves Feathered Friends, as though the geese used to make their products cherish the relationship. Friendship implies reciprocity, of benefit to each party involved, not the violent plucking of one’s skin cover. If only those poor geese could talk!

"Fermentation"note 1: It is doubtful, however, the doctor would have prescribed so much alcohol intake.

"Feces"note 2: I have yet to see a privy with a bookshelf.