Lighthouse is goin strong.

Hey y'all!  Lighthouse here.  I'm doing fantastic.  I am in the public library in Marion, VA right now taking a zero day.  I have been kicking ass hiking the past 4 days trying to catch up with Simba and Bobsled.  Did about 20 miles for 3 days and then ended with a 23 miler.  I fell behind because I got sick eating some bad pepperoni.  As I was eating it, I was thinking to myself that it might get me sick, and BOY DID IT EVER.  I had 0 energy for like 3 days, and ***WARNING THIS MIGHT BE T.M.I FOR MOST***** I was literally shitting liquid for 2 days.  It really sucked.  But now my body is healthy and things couldn't be better.

Since I fell behind from being sick, I hiked by myself for 4 days, and I really enjoyed it.  It's nice to have a good group of people to hang out with, but it is also nice to get away from everyone and just go at it alone.  Very peaceful.  I also met some super nice people along the way who gave me free food, beers, etc while I was hiking.  It was GREAT.  It's amazing how something so small like a free soda can totally make your day out here.  But really, every day is just awesome out here.  Really, I don't get how people make this Appalachian Trail out to be some super strenuous task.  All I am doing is walking.  Every day.  You kinda get the hang of it after about 6 days.  Granted your feet will hurt every day, you will smell like ass every day, and you will have shitty weather days, but its just all awesome.  Just one amazing day after another out here.  I would still recommend this Appalachian trail journey to anyone.

The difficulty of this trail can drastically vary from how you experience it.  I think the HARDEST way to hike the A.T would be to NEVER stay in a hostel or hotel.  You would have to just camp out every night or stay in the shelters every night.  Now that's pretty hardcore.  And I'm sure a lot of people do it.  But, since I have the money, I  like going to a hotel or hostel once every 1 or 2 weeks.  It's not so expensive, yet its not the cheapest.  If you are an older person, you could TOTALLY do this trail as long as you stop more often.  So, really all you old people don't have any reason not to do this!  You just have to go slower to make sure you don't break any of your old and brittle bones.  I'M A YOUNGIN SO I JUST GO BLAZIN ON THE TRAIL WITH NO REGARDS TO THE WELFARE OF MY BODY AND I STILL HAVE NO PROBLEMS MUHAHAHAH!  Just kidding.  I actually feel like I am taking pretty good care of my body out here.  Nothing has been hurting too bad.  When you don't have much to do but hike all day, you really get into the zone with your body and making it move as efficiently as possible with minimal destruction to your body.  Or maybe that is just the engineer in me that is coming out. 

This library is actually super awesome and they have REALLY NICE computers so I can actually post pics!  Maybe even videos if it lets me!

So here is what I look like with my beard.  This was taken maybe about a week ago.  This is just my normal face.  IDK why I look so pissed off.  I guess that is just how I look.  I'm happy with my facial hair though!  I saw the older lady who gave me the name Lighthouse again.  She was like "wow you look so nice, do you groom your beard!?"  And I was like "nope, I don't do anything!"   Hurray for good beard growing capabilities!  

Also, I think its funny that the only place I can't grow any hair is just below my nose. But I like it, it adds some pizazz.  I call my beard the "Inverse Hitler".  I think it fits well...Hitler was pure evil, and I'm pure good!  I also put back earrings into my ears, because my holes never closed.  I found a Claires in one of these towns, and put in the least girly studs I could find.  I just got a bunch of different color studs, I like them alot.  I got bright green, bright blue, red, pink, and black.  I guess my headphones are covering them up in this picture, but I can assure you that I look flyyy with them.

Here is what a typical resupply looks like for me.  Such unhealthy food, and I am still able to eat all of it and lose weight.  I think I am at 155 lbs now.  I'm super skinny again.  It's just so crazy all the terrible food I am eating, but my body needs the calories so I can eat this all with no problem!  It's been nice hiking with Bobsled, because she graduated from Cornell with a diatetics/nutrition degree.  It's been nice actually LEARNING about what the hell carbs, sugars, protiens actually will do to your body.  It's going to be nice when I get back to the "real world" and I have to start watching my diet.  I want to make a conscious effort to eat much more healthier when I get back, so I think all of the knowledge I am sucking up from her will help tremendously with that.

Here is a pic of all us hikers.  The other 3 people in the back are our "alter egos" Brendan, Statue, and Spitfire.  They are all real cool.

This is what a shelter looks like when you have been hiking in the cold wet rain all day.  Notice the condensation on the lens when I took the picture.  All the clothes are soaking wet.  And Brendan is breathign into his hands to keep them warm.  Boy those are fun days! Not.

I'm too lazy to figure out how to rotate this, but this is a big ass burger that I got in Hot Springs.  It was awesome.  And yes, I ate it all.  It was hard to do!

So, Trail Days is the big hiker festival that was held last weekend.  Basically just a big party where everyone parties for 3 days.  It was fun.  There was actually a hiker talent show, and I performed a cover song there too!  It was pretty nerve wracking, because there was like 300 people watching me.  I did pretty good, but there were so many good performances that I didn't win.  OH WELL MAYBE NEXT YEAR.  But I thought the funnest part was actually GETTING TO TRAIL DAYS IN THIS BADASS OLD BRONCO.  We were about 50 hiking miles away from the town where the festival was at, so Cee Cee at the Greasy Creek Hostel gave us a ride there for 10 bucks each in this badass bronco.  It was amazing.  Something about riding through the mountains in a shitty old car is awesome.  She brought her dog too, so he was chillin in my lap the whole time which definitely added to the experience. 

Thanks for the ride Cee Cee!

Lake Watauga.  Such a pretty lake.  I love how the treeline goes all the way down to the water everywhere.

This is one of the shelters we stayed at.  It was a barn that they converted into a shelter.  This is what I went to bed, and what I woke up to.  Can you say AMAZING??

We found these guys at the top of this mountain giving away some free drinks.  Free sodas and an amazing view make for an amazing day.

A lot of the day, you will be hiking through thick vegetation, so you will almost forget you are hiking through mountains.  I thought this pic did a pretty good job capturing the beauty of just a typical day hiking.

OHMAHGUAD MORE EARTH PORN!!

So in the Grayson Highlands State Park, they got ponies.  They are pretty awesome.  I had no food but I just stuck my hand out and they would just lick the salt of my hand.  I'm trying to upload the video below of some PONY ACTION but I dont think it will work. 

Oh hey, an outhouse that actually looks like an outhouse!  Best one on the trail. 10/10. Would poop in again.

This view was really sweet because it was not really expected.  I was just walking along the trail until I looked to the right and BAM here it was!

I like to get my water from all natural sources.  Out here, piped springs are the bomb.  If they are at the top of the mountain, you don't need to treat them chemically cause no animal has the chance to take a crap in the water.  And mannn...fresh spring water tastes SO GREAT!

Waterfalls!!

This was wayyy back in the Smokies, but I loved the green on everything.  You really can't capture it with a camera, but the green was SOOO PRETTY when you were walking through it.

OK well I think thats enough pictures for now!  I'm super stoked that I am able to upload some pics.  Hopefully I will have much more for you guys!  But don't worry about me, I'm lovin it out here!

OH!  So some of y'all have wanted to send me some stuff to help me out, and I would loveeeee for you guys to do that!  If you would like to send me a package of some sort, I think the easiest way would be to just text me that you are interested in sending me something and I will converse via text on what to do.  My phone number is 317-674-2332.  Just tell me who you are and that you would like to send me something, and I will take it from there.  Don't be surprised if I do not reply for about 3 days....AT&T service is TERRIBLE here in the south.  Apparently it gets better up north but WHO KNOWS.

SOOOOO if you are one of these people who would like to send me things, but aren't sure about what to send, I can give you some ideas!

• Any kind of energy bars.  Granola bars, breakfast bars, Clif bars. 
• SNICKERS BARS!  They are awesome
• Beef Jerkey.  MMM sooo GOOD.  And I am always in need of PROTEIN OUT HERE!
• Pop tarts, or food of that nature.
• Anything little debbie.
• Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies. cough cough Mrs. Heck cough chough
• Mountain house dehydrated meals.  These are like the holy grail of meals out here.  They are awesome because all you need to do is just add hot water to the bag, and voila you have a delicious meal.  They are expensive though, so I don't expect anyone to actually buy these.  But hey, I'd thought I would at least mention it!

That is all I can think of at the moment.  Really, I will eat anything that is calorie dense.  Lots of calories for little amount of weight.  But OK I AM DONE RAMBLING HERE!  We are off to go eat some taco bell.  I can't wait.  I haven't had taco bell for the longest time, and I AM GOING TO DESTROY IT!

Ciao!

Lighthouse

Some pics

So there are 4-5 straight days of rain coming so we are taking our first zero day here in Gatlinburg.  3 days of straight rain has gotta be better than 4 days of straight rain!  And this motel is actually really awesome.  Its called the Grand Prix Hotel, and the dude who runs it is suuuuper christian.  Like he has pictures everywhere of J.C and preaches the good word everywhere, but he is a super awesome and friendly man.  You can tell he really cares about the thru hikers here.  And its only $35 bucks a night.  Split 3 ways...not too shabby.  It's funny, he mentioned "You can do almost anything to please a thru hiker, but a regular guest, you can't do ANYTHING to please them.  So true.  We are just super excited to see washer and dryers. 

  We have some free time so I persuaded my trail mates Simba and the newly named Bobsled to send some of their pictures over to my email so I could post some stuff...so here are some pics!

Here is me and Simba trying to hitch a ride into Gatlinburg, TN.  I tried for big smiles and I even tied my american flag bandana to my hiking poles to try and win some brownie points with the drivers.  We ended cramming into a small jetta that a kid about our age was driving.  He was taking a month off and driving all across the United States and camping whever he drove to that day.  Almost like what we are doing, but different.  I have a feeling I might do something like that right when I get back from the trail so I can hopefully find some cool new cities.  I have heard great things about Milwaukee from another thru hiker my age, so I might check that out.  I think Louisville would be cool to visit too.

This is me opening the window to a fire tower that sits on top of a mountain.  The big body of water in the pic flows through the fontana dam, which is really beautiful.  I'm not sure if you can see the dam in this pic.  Getting up to this fire tower was really sketchy, half of the guide rails weren't there, and it just seemed like a not so solid structure.  But an incredible view at the top!

Simba actually climbed ON TOP of the fire tower and took a realllllly awesome 360 panorama of the whole mountains.  He def has some balls climbing on top of the 150 foot tower like that.

Here is the road on Fontana Dam

Here is looking to one side of the dam

Here is a cool pic of me walking across the dam.  My guitar looks like some kind of rocket.  I need to let the air out of my bag.

Here is me and My crew, Simba and Bobsled.  Some of you might be wondering "Jeez, that guitar looks really tall, does it get in the way when ur hiking?"  YES.  Its super annoying, it always hits the bottom of branches.  And the guitar slides around a bunch from side to side.  It really messes up my center of gravity too while hiking.  I'm sure it would be a hell of a lot easier to hike without it, but NO WAY AM I SENDING THAT BACK!

Alright, I'm done here.  LIGHTHOUSE OUT!

Cold + Rain = ?

BAD!  IT EQUALS BAD!

Hey guys.  I'm still alive and doing just fine.  I am in the super sweet deluxe "Grand Prix Motel" run by some super christian dude.  I am typing this right now while they have one of those christian motivational speaker dudes on DVD...its rather creepy in my opinion.  BUT I DIGRESS

Everything is still going well with me.  I definitely have the "hikers stomach"  now.  I eat everything, all the time.  I eat a full meal, and then about 15 minutes later I am still like "I could totally eat a candy bar", so I do.  And I lose weight.  BE JEALOUS LADIES!

This is definitely a huge lifestyle change.  There are no "monday - fridays".  There are just "good days" and "bad days".  (Please imagine me doing the quotation movement with my fingers).  Good days are days where it is warm, birds are chirping, im listening to my mp3 player, and I am eating well.  Bad days are COLD AND RAINY DAYS.  they really suck.  like hard.  I have a feeling a lot of people don't really understand....if you were a kid back in the day, you could go out in the cold rain and freeze your ass off for like 3-4 hours, and then eventually you would go inside, get warm change ur clothes, and then you would make campbells chicken noodle soup cuz its the bomb.  ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL, YOU DON'T GET THAT. 

Everything you are wearing gets soaked, you get really cold, and then your fingers are super hard to move.  Then you get to camp, get even colder (because you aren't moving), attempt to change ur clothes, and then u gotta eat a meal.  Then just go hibernate in your sleeping bag.  It really sucks.  And then the next day there is no guarantee it will be sunny out, so you could just put on all of those wet clothes, and DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.  It sucks, but its all part of the experience.  As one of my fellow hikers said to me when I said that...."Whenever you have to say 'its all part of the experience', its always about something really shitty".  Laugh. Out. Loud.  True that my fellow hiker, true dat.

But it really does make you appreciate how effing awesome heat and shelter are.  I'm in jubilee right now that I am staying at a motel where I can TAKE SHOWER, and TURN ON LIGHT, and WATCH TV (that part was said in a caveman voice).  Cool stuff right there.

I kinda feel like the Appalachian trail is like a really really lax bootcamp.  You will do some real hard stuff, but you can quit whenever you want.  You gotta wear a 35 lb pack up and down mountains for 6 months. No one is breathing down your neck telling you that you need to pick up the pace, so you can take the hard parts real easy (it will just take you forever though).

I have been playing guitar still on the trail, its still fun.  Its cool to bring it out at a campsite every time and someone will clap or compliment me.  yay for positive energy.

I have met two real old dudes, Hell Izzy (he is so slow that ppl go "where the hell is he") and Turtle.  Turtle was a badass old 70 year old.  He was a badass photographer who at 17 got hired by a camera company to take pictures of all the landmarks across the united states.  He worked as a still photographer working in NYC on tv shows.  He worked on sesame street, how cool!  He had a lot of cool interesting stories about his life.  He actually just walked into the motel, NEAT! 

I can't upload any pics on these computers because they are owned by the hotels, and they are incredibly slow.  Like wow.  I bet there is so much porn on these computers...that stuff will make ur computer hella slow.  I wish I could upload some pics because it is freaking awesome beautiful out here.  I will def not get tired of the scenes on the AT.  I think I can buy another device to hopefully make this "uploading pictures" process a whole lot easier, so hopefully you guys will see some cool pics soon.  I got some gee-tar videos I did in some scenery so that would be a cool video I can upload.

Ok people there are way too many people in this little motel room, so I am gonna go now.  Looks like the next 3-4 days here are rain...Shit.  But hey, I'll survive!  The good and the bad, the ying and the yang, blah blah blah.

PEACE,

Joe "Lighthouse" Moyer

OH yeah I will mention how I got my trail name "Lighthouse".  I busted out my guitar on like the 3rd day when I got to camp early.  I was playing for a while and then 2 ladies came into camp while I was playing.  They knew they were close to the campsite because they could hear my playing from on top of the mountain. So they were like "you were like a lighthouse that guided the way for us, you should be lighthouse!"  Which I was like "yep, sure sounds good."  Which if you think about it, aren't lighthouses there to guide you away from the rocky parts that jut out to sea?  NOT SURE IM NOT A NAUTICAL MAN, but lighthouse sounds kinda cool and mysterious at the same time, SO ILL TAKE IT!

later!