eMail I received today...

I missed the Internet while I was on the trail and eMail messages such as the following which I have cut and pasted below. I assumed they were naturally talking about hiking gear but my wife seems to think they meant something different. What do you think?

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Take your chance to make her adore you. Outrun her ex in terms of size and performance! You will love watching it, feeling it and of course using it - just several weeks to go! After you apply this solution to your equipment, your girls will call you Mr. Big Size. Just imagine your new happy life with more size, more adoration from females and more self-assurance. Come in here:

Changes...

They happen gradually on the trail, but they indeed happen...changes to your body and mind. Being out in the wilderness, in the wilds, awakens thousands, if not millions of years worth of instincts that have been slowly driven out of us as we live our concrete-enveloped lives. These instincts are suppressed by the daily stresses that we impose on ourselves such as improper diets, lack of exercise and fresh air, living inside our air-conditioned boxes day after day waking up and going to bed at times other than what our body would like. We create an artificial environment which robs us of our natural rhythms and spend almost all of our waking days there, rarely venturing out into nature.

While it's true that we all have to make a living, our workplace with its artificial lighting and artificial atmosphere, slowly robs us of our natural strength and vitality until we wake up one day wondering why our backs hurt so much, why we are tired all the time and why we just don't seem in tune to the world around us. We try to escape to the mountains or the ocean or someplace else for a week or two, and during that time, we recover slightly and are refreshed. But after only a couple days of returning to the grind, we find ourselves right back in the same rut, almost as bad off as we were before our vacation. If we could only win the lottery, we think to ourselves, day after day.

Spending a long period of time in the wilderness resets this clock. It erodes the wear-and-tear effects that break down our body, mind and spirt, and helps bring balance and normalcy back to our being. We find that peace, and discover that it didn't actually reside in the woods, but within ourselves. It just took us being out in the woods to find it again. The Appalachian Trail is but one place that can help you find this.

Some of the first changes you notice after being out in the wilderness for a while, are the daily aches and pains of your body telling you, "hey bub...you're supposed to be in an air-conditioned cubicle relaxing and surfing the web." You hurt often and regularly, at least for a little while. This is from your body moving in ways it maybe hasn't moved in years. It is the awakening of muscles in your feet, legs, hips and the rest of your body that haven't been exercised like that before, or at least in a while. If you are gentle and listen to your body, you will adapt, and the pains will subside eventually as it gets used to the new activity. But you must be open to what your body is telling you, and you must listen. It knows what it needs.

Your vision, blunted from years of artificial lighting and a two dimensional computer screen, will change making colors more vivid. Your depth perception will improve as you exercise the muscles in your eyes. You will see better when it is darker outside and in lower light levels, and sometimes at night when the moon is full, you will see quite well without a flashlight. You will notice very small animals that you might not have noticed before and the seemingly unlimited color pallete of nature will open up right before your eyes in all its splendor.

Your hearing will improve. No longer jammed with the sounds of hard-to-hear cell phone calls, earphones, loud stereo music, beeps and tones, you will hear a wider range of sounds from rustling leaf noises to shrill and faint bird calls a mile away. You will learn to distinguish animal calls and will hear sounds in nature you might never have noticed before. The sounds of rushing water from streams and water falls will soothe and calm you, and as the waters carry away the dead and decaying debris of the forest, so will they help carry away the decay of dread of the concrete world you have left behind.

Your sense of touch will improve. You will touch hot things, cold things, lukewarm things, soft things, hard things, artificial materials, natural materials and everything in between. To touch a 500 year old oak tree and ponder how the world has changed while this tree simply grew on this one spot is amazing in itself. To touch sedimentary rock formations that are millions of years old, an age measured by geologic time because that many years is impossible for us to fathom is amazing. To stand at the tip of a mountain top and touch the marble slabs at its peak and to look down at the ridges that were once filled with mile-deep sheets of ice is incredible to imagine.

Your sense of taste will improve as you begin to drive out those daily artificial colors and sweeteners from your body which are dozens of times more potent than they need to be. Food which you might have once doused with flavorings might only need a pinch of pepper or drop or two of hot sauce. You will begin to not want these artificially prepared foods as much, and start craving more healthy and natural foods as you begin to get in touch with what your body needs and not what you are told you want by advertisers. You will enjoy foods more, and appreciate them more because they are not surrounding you in such abundance, 24 hours a day.

Your sleep routine will change and you will find yourself getting tired and going to bed when the sun goes down and waking up when the sun begins to rise. You don't go to bed at 1AM in the wilderness like we do in our homes. Our body gets us up when the sun begins to rise, not at 5AM because we have to shower and hit the road before rush hour. On the trail we often sleep 10-12 hours because it's what our body needs and we have a lot more energy as a result. It's all about connecting.

The changes that wilderness life brings to us include these things and many more. If you think about it, it really helps bring us back in touch with the millions of years of evolution which brought us here today and that make us who we are.

It's easy to get so stressed out with our lives. Trust me on this, I know only too well. But the good news is that relief is available to us, not just the temporary kind that we feel during a vacation and which fades as soon as we return, but life changing relief that can take us from our daily challenging lives full of stress and challenges and deliver us to a place of peace and contentment.

It's all out there in the wilderness, we just have to decide to go out and get it.

Variety - The Spice of Life...

In between my more meaningful blog entries, I put some mundane ones in there. Yesterday I wrote two entries... one deep, meaningful and spiritual entry about the trail, and another about tortillas. But in reality, they are linked as my tortilla experiences were as meaningful as my deer encounters. Any food experiences on the trail are quite meaningful because as you hike your appetite grows stronger and stronger and even things that you would never have eaten before you started hiking are welcomed respites from the daily grind of noodles and pasta.

Tuna. I really don't like tuna and never had. I think the last time I ate it was back in 1968. I was watching Popeye, the one where Bluto steals Olive Oil and takes her over to the ship, etc. I thought I was getting chicken salad and when I bit into the sandwich, it was tuna. I felt betrayed, tricked and humiliated. Ok, maybe not that drastic as a 4 year old, and now that I think about it, I think I was watching Felix the Cat instead. Anyway, I haven't eaten tuna in as long as I can remember.

Oh, perhaps you think I am going to say that I tried it on the trail for the first time in 37 years. Nope, I still hate it and would probably die of starvation rather than open that mylar pack of Sunkist tuna, but I have come close to trying it on those days where I ran out of food a day before town. And that last day or so before town is when you eat all the strange stuff in your food bag or things you've been putting off. Sometimes it becomes a mixture of tastes and whatever you have left over becomes the casserole for the evening. Noodles and peanut butter was one memorable meal. Throwing it all up an hour later was also quite memorable.

But as one's food bag is filled with a variety of foods and tastes, so are my blog entries here; some meaningful and tasty, and others about privies or webwalking. Take what you like and stuff the rest back in your food bag for later. If you get hungry and there haven't been any new blogs for a while, break open the food bag and read some of the older ones.

Muddyshoes

Tortillas

Tortillas are magical in every way. They really are. They are the perfect hiking food as they hold just about everything and can stand up to just about any weather. My favorite things are to roll up peanut butter and jelly in them, or those little packets of cooked chicken breast with cheese and that irradiated bacon that is precooked and supposedly survives for months without refrigeration. You can use them with tuna or if you get some lettuce while in town, you can make all kinds of wraps with whatever you like. But on the trail, a 10 pack of soft tortillas offers a wide variety of options for keeping your meals interesting since just about every type of food that hikers carry can be wrapped inside them.

The only problem with tortillas is that they aren't available all the time. Occasionally, the tiny market which you often come across in trail towns will have tortillas, but generally they are limited to larger supermarket chains. Sometimes you have to buy packs of the small ones, sometimes the large ones or whatever you can find. But when you do find them, it always heralds a week or so of quick, convenient and inexpensive meals.

They may just about be the perfect food.

Muddyshoes

I love the trail...

I really do. You wouldn't think that from all the bitching I've done in my blog, but all things considered, it was the pleasant memories that stick out the most to me. I mean, think about it. I was able to leave a career that didn't fit me anymore; leave all that behind and take six months off to hike in the woods. No cell phone, no pager, no telemarketers, no stupid drivers, no loud television, no barrage of advertising being shoved down my throat at every turn, no crabby boss telling me that my work was not up to his expectations, no shitty work reviews or performance appraisals, no paying $3.00/gallon and up for gas because we've pissed off the whole middle east again, no Jehovah's waking me up on Sunday mornings, no screaming car salesman, no news people or polititians taunting me with fear-based propaganda, and best of all, I could eat whatever I wanted every morning, noon and night and each point in between.

There are countless tradeoffs to be sure, like wearing the same stinky and sweaty clothing for a week, 8 hours of really challenging physical work each day, rain, snow, sleet and hail, loud shelter-mates and bugs...lots and lots of bugs. But over time, you forget about these inconveniences...most of them, anyway, and you remember the kind people you met, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the days where the trail was nice to you and your feet and having countless special encounters with wildlife. I think about the many deer that I've seen which foraged just several feet away from the shelter platform where I was laying on many occasions. I remember the hummingbirds that flew just feet away from me and buzzed and hummed assessing me for nectar potential. And I remember seeing my first red salamander which contrasted brightly against the brown leafy trailbed where I was walking in North Carolina. I remember walking through the misty fog after a cool, morning rain and the loamy moss covered rocks and trees which I'm sure held faeries and other mystical creatures. Yes, I've seen all these wonderful things and more, and that is literally a one in a million opportunity.

I think about the effects of my words in my blogs and writings, occasionally. I don't want to paint too much of a negative picture and possibly dissuade someone from making this journey. On the other hand, I want to try and really portray how challenging an experience this has been for me, and indeed it has been the most difficult thing I've ever attempted. But I'm committed, and even though I won't finish this year as I intended, I will finish, which was one of the things I was most concerned about. If you may recall, my life is full of many things that I didn't finish and this trip was hopefully meant to make up for them...well, most of them anyway.

Think about the freedom that a trip of this imparts, how empowering it is to be able to control just about every aspect of your day except for the weather. And then think about how little control you have over the normal aspects of your normal day at home and work. This is a rare opportunity to be sure.

What? You can't do this trip because you have family, too much debt, are too old, too young, have responsibilities or are in poor health? The truth is, this journey can wreak havoc on all those things, but then again, if you plan for it, there are none of those things which can't be overcome. I met countless families on the trail or people who had families back home. I met a couple who had a big house and lots of debt back home and they hike a little bit of the trail each year. I met people in their 80s on the trail and a good number of thru-hikers in their 60s. I met a young boy of 10 thru-hiking with his father. I met a couple CEOs of companies who just decided they needed a break. And there's me, an overworked, out of shape computer jockey who couldn't go up a flight of stairs without being out of breath. 3 and a half months later, I completed my 700th mile of the trail and will be getting back on next month to finish walking 1,000 miles this year.

The truth is that there is no good reason or excuse why you can't do this. There is no situation that cannot be planned for, and granted, it may take a while before you are ready. I had to plan for 4 years to make this happen, but if it takes you even 10 years before you can do this...where will you be in 10 years otherwise?

We are the sources of our own limitations, not those things in our lives that we blame or that we put in our way so that we cannot do things. You have to first make the decision that this is something important to you and then start planning for it. There are countless resources and places to go for information. Remember that I had never done any hiking or backpacking when I decided to do it. The next four years were spent learning what all this hiking stuff is and then saving to buy it. Draw from any experiences in your life where you overcame tremendous odds to accomplish something phenominal. C'mon, you know you have something you can remember. You are the same person now as you were then, you just have a lot more life experiences to draw from.

If I have inspired you at all to take this journey, you don't even have to do it in one sitting. You can do it in a year, or over two years, or five years. One couple I met just outside the Smokey Mountain National Park had been hiking parts of the trail for over 35 years and they only had about 135 miles left. Some of the most inspiring, thoughtful people I've come across were those who had made their hike of the Appalachian Trail one of adventure and wonder every year or every time they set foot upon the path over the course of several years or more. I think in many ways, they are more fortunate than shlubs like me who feel they have to do this trail in one year. They see a lot more because they aren't rushed by a deadline, and they have the wonder of starting the trail "new" every time they head out.

So what are you waiting for...a lifetime of cherished memories, physical challenges and personal triumphs beyond anything you could ever imagine are there for you to experience. You just have to make the commitment to experience them.

Oh, and a shitload of bugs await you too. I do love the trail, but I really, really hate the bugs.

Muddyshoes

Broken Values...

It's been almost a month since I've gotten off the trail this year.

The past few weeks have been a blur. I've hidden out from the world, wrestled internally with all of my decisions made so far, and have tried to catch up on sleeping and eating. It's only been this week that I've started answering emails, phone calls and have started to transition back into the real world, only to leave it again next month when I return to the trail. I have visited a department store or two, but nothing could have prepared me for a visit to someplace I hadn't been in over a year... Costco.

Now while that may not seem drastic to you, consider that for the past 4 months, the average store that I've seen, with the exception of a supermarket or two, has been a small 'mom and pop' grocery or 'General Dollar" or some other limited general store. Costco was huge, and loud, stacked high with electronics, giant boxes of 3-Musketeers, paper towels and 36-packs of croissants. People with glazed eyes wandered around the store like zombies pushing large, wide shopping carts and filling them with huge boxes of bulk merchandise with the justification that they are saving money by buying in bulk. Now this is true, but many of these people were rather large, showing that they are also eating in bulk.

I was captivated almost immediately, as was Costco's intention, by the stack of large plasma televisions I was herded through immediately as I entered the store - In just 4 months, high definition screens had become thinner and less expensive and the good folks at Costco conveniently loaded several of them on carts in case I just wanted to 'drive' one to the nearest cashier, pay for it, take it home and start 'slothing' out on the gross of Ring Dings that I was meant to have purchased at the same time.

I fought the urges to buy some camera memory, in part because I really didn't need it but also because I didn't have the money. Costco and other big box bulk stores are as much about impulse buying as they are about buying sensibly. Instead, I walked with my wife to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription. You see, Costco offers better deals on many prescriptions than your convenient, square corner drug store. While I was waiting for the prescription to be filled, I inquired on the cost of my ADHD medication which I have not had in months because of the cost and because I don't have insurance at the moment. $118.00 I was told. "$118.00? Are you shitting me?" It had already gone up another $20.00 since I left for the trail.

This really, really angered me, as if our health care system in this country didn't already do that. Here I am, in Costco, the Mecca of decadence, surrounded by every type and class of product you can imagine at the lowest prices possible, and a month's worth of my prescription costs more than a flat panel monitor for a computer.

So it hit me.

While the prices of all these laptop computers, books, DVDs, tools, pool tables, filing cabinets, water coolers, lawn mowers, digital cameras, bug zappers and other shit that most people don't need keep dropping every day, the prices of the things that they DO need like medications go up in price. What the hell is that? How come our country, the richest in the free world with the most potential and resources for taking care of its citizens, places more emphasis on greed and capitalism than on the well-being of the people who live there? As for my medication, I could work harder for that extra $118.00/month or for better insurance to make the prescription cost less, but there are plenty of other people...people you know or perhaps yourself that can't. That just plain sucks in 2006.

When I got home, without either a new 60-inch high definition TV or a 2,000-count jug of Rolaids, I looked up a couple studies that showed that the wholesale cost of my medication was around $3.00. Now I want you think about that for a moment. Please.

Ok, so that's a markup of oh, around 4000%. Do they really need to make 4000% profit? What if they made 2000% or even 1000%? 1000%, now that's reasonable considering that the profit for merchandise in a store is around 40%, or less with electronics. Computer manufacturers are thriving on profits of 2% or 3% in some cases, and they still have huge facilities, large payrolls and management perks, and they still can fund R&D. But drug manufacturers and their drug store partners in crime are reaping huge profits from the ills of you and I, funded by the insurance industry which pays these high prices without question. Who gets screwed? I do, YOU do, the people you love do, by our having to pay higher insurance premiums. The drug manufacturers and drug companies don't want you well, they want you sick so you will buy more medicine. Think about it... please. Because while my ADHD medicine isn't something that can mean the difference between life or death, the meds that others aren't taking who can't afford them are.

I stopped looking for information about this because I was too disgusted. Michael Moore, whether you like him or not, is working on a new movie called "Sicko" which is about the health care industry in this country. No doubt the health care industry is already working on damage control as evidenced by the increasing numbers of commercials showing how their profits are being put to good use to fund research. To that end, I have to ask, what good is research to make better drugs if people can only afford them with insurance. And then I ask, what good is insurance, if people can't afford it. According to the U.S. Census, in 2004, 12.7% of U.S. citizens lived below the poverty line. That's 38 million people, folks. And 15% of U.S. citizens do NOT have health insurance. That's 45 million people. 45 million people in the richest country in the world do not have health insurance. That really sucks.

About the only thing these people can afford, is a 60 inch plasma TV.

Is it any wonder why someone would want to leave all this crap behind and go walk in the woods for six months?

MuddyShoes