Onward!!!

Ah... 10 days off. A welcomed retreat. A chance for my body parts to heal, to visit home for a week in Orlando to see my wife and friends and family. A week of good nutrition, advice from trainers at the "Y" and blessings from doctors that nothing is broken, permanently, anyway.

Coming back home was strange. Even after only two and a half months, it felt strange being back in the city surrounded by so much cement, traffic and people who were all focused on different things. I feel like I don't belong here and now eagerly await the chance to return to my journey in Virginia.

This is good.

I was a bit afraid of returning home, thinking that I might not want to go back. I even left my pack and gear in Virginia with instructions NOT to return them home. But even in Virginia, I never felt like I wouldn't want to return, even when I was hobbling down the trail, soaked to the bone from rain and even on the verge of hypothermia.

After two and a half months, the trail has gotten into my blood. It is challenging and daunting at times, but it is a place of refuge, a place where I can be alone or with others who are of like mind. It's a place to communicate and share with other hikers or simply to be alone for a while. It is a place where I can be myself and laugh or cry, or simply ponder things for a bit. I've been gone for about 6 days now and miss the trail.

Within hours of arriving back home in Orlando, I grabbed my DVD of "TREK," a video documentary of some A.T. hikers who made a movie of their experience. When the video started, I watched them walk with their packs and instantly shed a tear. I'm not sure why, exactly, but think it was because I was already missing that path of dirt and stone, of roots and leaves and of pain and joy.

There is no question now whether I will be returning to the trail. I have Mount Rogers area of Virginia coming up, and White Top mountain, the wild ponies at the Gracen Highlands and so many more things to see and experience. I have some new tools to take with me on the trail, and some more knowledge. And I know that my pains, while enough to slow me down, are not stopping me.

When I look in the mirror now, I don't see a lost computer guru with no direction. I see a scruffy, wild-haired mountain man with a goal and desire to press northward to Maine. I don't know if I will reach the summit of Kathadin this year or perhaps spring of next, but one thing is for sure...there are many miles to go before I sleep.

Muddyshoes - GA --> ME, 2006