I'm backkkkkkk!

Hi everybody!

Sorry for the delay, I haven't had access to a computer for a while. 

SO LETS RECAP.  Last time I blogged was when I was in Boiling Springs, PA.  It was a beautiful little town right at the start of Pennsylvania.  Little did I know that Pennsylvania would turn out to be the crappiest part of the trail.  There are a few major factors as to why Pennsylvania sucks ass, which I will gladly explain below.  Just take my word now, if you plan on hiking some part of the A.T, DO NOT CHOOSE TO DO YOUR SECTION IN PENNSYLVANIA!!!

1.  It's boring as shit.
  
Seriously, there is nothing to look at in Pennsylvania.  It is just flat, boring woods all of the way through.  Let me give you an example from our guidebook.  Here is an example of some of the stuff we walked through in North Carolina.

So this picture shows you the type of terrain we walked through over a course of 20 miles in North Carolina.  As you can see, we were walking at high elevations (5000+ feet) and going up and down some pretty steep stuff.  High elevations and steep inclines/declines make for some awesome sites.  You can even see a little camera icon on this page above, which signifies a nice vista that you can take a good picture at.

Now, let me show you what a page looks like out of Pennsylvania.

WOMP WOMP.  It is completely flat, and you are at less than 2000 feet the whole time.  That means you are just walking through trees nonstop.  They nickname the A.T "The Green Tunnel", and I am pretty sure its due to Pennsylvania being so lame.

When I researched the A.T, everyone talks about hikers getting the "Virginia Blues".  This is the time where you have been hiking for about a month or so, and hikers start to get bored of the terrain (or just bored of hiking) in Virginia, and they quit.  That saying is dumb.  Virginia was pretty kickass in my opinion.  Things didn't start sucking until Pennsylvania. They should ditch the Virginia Blues saying and go ahead and stick with "The Pennsylvania Depression".  I am in the process of trademarking that.

2.  The terrain sucks.
 
Now, on top of Pennsylvania being really flat, it is ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY.  So many rocks.  Seriously, like nonstop rocks all the way through Pennsylvania.  I heard about it being bad, but I had no idea it would be this bad.

ROCKS

 ROCKS

 OH hey, an actual view in Pennsylvania.  But look at what I had to climb up to take this picture.

INTENSE STEEP ROCKS!

Rocks suck.

3.  It was incredibly hot

  We hiked through Pennsylvania during an intense heat wave.  Probably 5 straight days in the mid 90s, which is NO FUN.  Simple hills become incredibly tiresome due to the heat.  You become drenched in your own sweat.  You gotta chug water constantly, which is hard because when the land is so flat, springs and streams are a rarity.

Not sure if you can tell from the pic, but my shorts and legs are drenched in sweat.

Also, heat waves are a PERFECT time for insects to come out and bother you.  It was not uncommon for us to have about 75 flies swarming around us while hiking.  They are rather annoying, but I was able to tune them out fairly well.  They mostly just hover around your body and face, but they usually won't land on you.  I think its amazing how well they can just hover in front of your body while you walk.  There were times where I was swatting my hands across my body and hitting at least 30 bugs at a time.

4.  The trail was not maintained at all

There was a bunch of thorns and overgrowth that appeared on the trail that stabbed you while you walked, and it could rip and tear your clothing/gear.  That kind of upset me, but I can't get too upset.  I mean, trail maintenance is done all by volunteers.  And most volunteers are old farts who are retired and have nothing else to do.  Why would these old people want to go to the crappiest/rockiest part of the trail, and help maintain it?  I sure as hell wouldn't, so I'll let that one slide.

OK, I will stop my bitching now.

As soon as you get out of Pennsylvania, there is a nice river you could take a swim in.  Me and Simba took advantage of that!

Simba mean muggin in the river.

It's a tough life we live.

Purdy mountains with a sunset.

We got to walk straight up to this monument.  I can't remember what it was called but its basically like the Washington monument.  It's a cool feeling walking up to something like that.

 This was a cool shelter.

Here are my brand new Superfeet insoles, and my old ones that have 1200+ miles on them.

Here is a cool mile long boardwalk out in New Jersey.  Would have been a little more enjoyable if it wasn't 95 degrees out!

 Yeah...'MERICA!!  I love the clouds in this picture, so beautiful.  I have noticed that New York and Connecticut have had beauuuutiful clouds.

Oh hey, I made it to NYC!  So one of the hikers on the trail lives in Connecticut, and he offered us a place to stay, and a train ride into NYC, so we took a day to explore.  It was pretty cool.  Lots of people, and lots of expensive stuff to buy....Yay..?  It reminded me of Chicago, only like 3x bigger.

Cool perspective of the new Freedom Tower.  Remember kids, FREEDOM AIN'T FREE!

They could hardly tell we were tourists!

Bridge!

Pretty view over the bridge.  This was like the perfect weather.  About 78 degrees and really breezy.

BIG TREE!

Sometimes you just gotta look straight up to see some cool stuff.

Waterfalls.

 Dopeee.

Sometimes we gotta climb some REAL TOUGH STUFF!

Senior photo style 1500 miles!

We walked along a ridge to this site for maybe a quarter mile.  That was sweeet.

I can't get enough of these clouds!


Alright everyone, I hope this was enough pictures to make up for the month I didn't update my blog.  I have less than two months till I finish this!  It is exciting, and yet sad that this amazing journey is coming to an end soon.  But, I am sure I will keep you guys posted soon, we just entered into Massachusetts, and we only have Mass, Vermont, New Hampshire, and MAINE LEFT!  And, everyone tells me that everything after Vermont is aaawwwwwesome so I can't wait!

Also, I have to mention that we are unfortunately no longer hiking with Bobsled.  She got off of the trail as soon as we hit New York because she has to go back to school to finish up her dietetics program.

We miss you Bobby!


OK, I am for realsies done now.

Ciao ciao ciao ciao

Lighthouse.

YEAH....'MERICA!!

Howdy!

I am hanging out in a very quaint little town called Boiling Springs, PA.  It's very nice here.  It seems like this would be a place where older couples who want to escape to a nice little town come to go buy a house.  Or maybe I am just so used to sleeping in the woods that every town I come across now is just heaven.  ANYWAYS life is still good for me.  Surprisingly, hiking is still not boring for me.  I'd like to think that I am veryyyy good at occupying myself while walking.  I have always daydreamed a lot in my life, so I just daydream a bunch out here and that keeps me occupied.  I am incredibly tired of all my songs on my mp3 player though.

So, we finally made it out of Virginia!  Right after Virginia, you walk through West Virgina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.  Some crazy people decide that they want to try and go walk through all of these states in less than 24 hours to complete the 4 state challenge.  The 4 state challenge is 44 miles long.  These people that decide to try this are also crazy as well.  I mean, the longest day I have had so far is 25 miles and my body is killing me after that.  I couldn't imagine doing 20 EXTRA miles after that...but apparently people finish it!

We were hiking with one of our good buds named Walk Hard who attempted to do the challenge.  We haven't seen him for a few days, so I don't think he finished the challenge.  He went to the doctor for pain in his hip, and the doctor said that he had a case of dancer's hip.  I couldn't help but LOL at that diagnosis.  Anyhootie hopefully he will catch up with us soon cause he is a hoot.  He is a southern boy from Birmingham, Alabama, and I would like to classify him as a smart dumbass.  He is college educated, and from having a conversation with him you can tell that he is pretty darn smart.  But, he is one of those guys that if you dare him to do anything wreckless or stupid, he would definitely do it.  Anyways, he is awesome and I hope he catches up with him.  Everything he says is comedy gold.  Something about that southern accent makes everything funny.

The biggest challenge now is hiking in the heat.  It's just so damn hot.  And you smelll SUUUUPER bad now since you sweat 24/7.  It's a challenge trying to go to sleep in your tent when its still 80 degrees out at 9 PM and there is no breeze.  Thaaatttsss real fun.  

OK. PICTURES.

Here is me just climbing up some mountains somewhere in Virginia.  We climbed all along the top of the mountains in the left side of the picture.  They were tough.

Here is an example of some hiker trash.  We were staying at a church hostel somewhere in Virginia.  From left to right, it's me, Walk Hard, Vaz, and Banjo.  The old guy in the back is Pressure D.  They are all good people.

Here is a common way of communicating with hikers on the trail.  LEAVING NOTES!  Pretty cool.  'Mailman' is the hikers name.

Mountains somewhere in Virginia.

The Roller coaster is in the last part of Virginia.  Its basically like 13 mini mountains in about a ten mile distance.  It was not easy, but my BEASTLY legs got me through it in a few hours.

Still don't freaking know how to rotate pictures on this Mac computer, nor do I know how to do it on this blogspot website.  Sorry!  Anyways, this hostel we stayed at allowed us to borrow their clothes while we were washing ours.  They only had a womens skirt left.  Most men might decide to not wear it, but if you know me I HAVE NO SHAME!!!  LOOK AT THOSE BEASTLY LEGS!! ;)

I like these green plants along the trail.  They make the flat parts of the trail a little more exciting.

Cool view going across the bridge to enter into Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.



So Harpers Ferry, West Virginia is the "mental halfway point" on  the A.T, and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy is there.  At this place, they get to take your picture for their records, and you are one step closer to becoming a legitimate thru hiker!

Look at that stud muffin!

Here is a large group of hikers getting their pictures taken at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

This is us chilling under a tree in Harpers Ferry.  It was about 2 PM and hot as balls when this was taken, so we waited until about 5 PM until it cooled off to hike out of town.

Cool view exiting Harpers Ferry.

This is the ORIGINAL washington monument.  Looks like a glass milk container to me.

 Here is the view from the top of the monument.

Almost halfway there!!!

Mad props to the volunteers of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.  They have had the BEST shelters on the trail so far.  It's amazing that basically the entire Appalachian Trail is maintained by volunteers.  But hey, I guess when you experience something as beautiful as the A.T, its easy for some to give back by volunteering.

Wooooo!!!  I'm halfway there!  And if there was any of you people out there that thought I would pussy out and quit can go SUCK IT!  I'm more than halfway done, THERE AIN'T NO WAY I'M QUITTING NOW!  (I probably just jinxed myself and I will blow out my ACL and have to quit the trail, oops)

So, just after you pass the halfway mark, there is a convience store along the trail that is home to the HALF GALLON CHALLENGE.  All you have to do is eat a half gallon of ice cream.  In normal life, this would probably be hard...butttt in hiker life....

IT'S A PIECE OF CAKE!  I finished in about 15 minutes.  I didn't realize how many calories are in a half gallon of ice cream.  I ate this around noon, and I wasn't hungry until 8 PM that night.  That is AMAZING for me, since my metabolism makes me have to eat every 2 hours or so.

Alright, I'm done!

Lighthouse out!