Trail Angels, Poptart farts, and Juicy Rock hunting.

Well, Scott and I have been on the trail  for six days now and I have been spoiled by trail angels, figured out that eating Poptarts every morning gives me and Scott both gas, got trail names ( Trial and Error), figured out that privies are about as gross as they come but still not as nasty as trying to dig a hole through rocks in Maryland while peeing on your shoe, and that finding a nice juicy rock to sit on is my newest favorite past time. I love sitting down. I really love sitting down. I also love the trail. I adore the people here so far; you can just be walking along cussing out the rocks that are lying in wait to do murder to your feet and out of nowhere will come sprinting down the ridgeline an old goat of a man, all muscle and bone and line. He has an easy gait and an easier way about him, he will take a moment to say hi, and stop to talk. A while later you will see some young super dirty mountain racers come blazing through, they nod as they race by, maybe say a couple of sentences in the same easy way but without breaking stride. You may see them with trash pickers, picking up litter from day hikers and such. every once in a while you will see woman hiking, stride sure, somehow not the least out of place here in these trails. The Angels are something that I am at a loss to describe; these unbelievable people will go to some extraordinary lengths to help us, the clearly mad, reach our goals.

So after week one of falling down and getting pinned by my own backpack, and falling over another rock that was lurking in the middle of the path, and getting blisters in a family of five, the getting chased by a gang of crazed butterflies, I have fallen in love with the trail and the people on it.

Signing out from my resupply in Smithsburg Maryland, where a Trail angel picked up Trial and I and drove us around and fed us and let us spend the night at his house.