The trail: the great communicator... a.k.a dames and trail names

Welcome to Hiawassee, Georgia population: 800 length of town aproximatly 2 miles, number of stop lights: 2.

You know when the church is the tallest building in town, you're in the south. But getting in to town is really great, all be it a little disallusioning. Wait so your saying i can just buy any food i want right off the shelf? like anything? If there was any advice i could give to those attempting a thru-hike it would be to get a water filter. Those who know me are aware that there are 3 things i am afraid of: spiders, anything floating in my water, and commitment. and boy do those water tablets leave a crap ton of floaties, sometimes mica and minerals and sometimes whole mosqiuto parts. Also ill be damned if after filtering a tiny muddy trickle of dirty and smelly stream water a water filter will have it coming out tasting like an ice cold bottle of poland springs. Anyway one week on the trail! huzzah break out the cheap champagne and double cheesburgers. I would say i've got a pretty good taste of trail life, which usually consists of a plethora of different people and beautiful views as well as a scheduele that has me in bed by 9 and awake by 7. There's the meandering snail who i met on my first night at the shelter. A 5'10 280 pound hari-krishna who had just come back not 14 days ago from a 6 year stay in an ashram in india (basically a monastery for krishnas). He was on his 12th day of a 30 day fast and had made it about 11 miles in those days. But not 5 feet away from him sat blues clues, a psychotherapist with his own practice in Boston. The trail is the great equalizer, you could have a harvard degree or a 2 felony record and by the end of the day everyone is cooking there ramen and discussing all of their aches and pains. How much mileage we are planning on doing tomorrow, the beautiful views and that bastard of a mountain who almost broke my ankle! Surprisingly the trail is about 70/30 guys and girls which is great because from experience i know that too much testosterone in one place is not a good thing.

from left: sink, ultra violet, button, and naked ninja at the mountain crossing hostel at neels gap. But i need to share with you the greatest 4 words that any thru-hiker can hear. its not "warm bed and shower" or "lookin like no rain" no its all you can eat. And eat all i could i did oh me brothers, i ate and i ate until i couldn't make up me rasoodock what to do with myself.

that first bite of real food was.... indescribable. and by the end of the meal, the taste of butterscotch pudding and whipped cream still rich on my tounge. I was grateful, i appreciated, and i knew there was nowhere else i would rather be then at that table with my friends, pure bliss. As far as my trail name(s) go i have gone through about 3 first was while in a shelter with Jason and Linda (two hippie folks carrying a ukelele and a fiddle whom i got along with real well until we split ways at woody gap). I wasn't sure whether to go on to the campsite or call it a very early night, and of course i lucked out as this was the day i landed that great spot on Justus mountain. So as im re-packing/un-packing Travis says jeez so what the hell are you going to do? I said yeah i'm an indecisive bastard and almost immediatley linda says, hey theres your trail name! I'll call you indecisive bastard steven I.B.S -__-. Then theres sink and his group who i've been keeping steady pace with pretty much a big group of farm boys. When i told them i'd come from Jersey and had lived there for quite a long time he thought i looked like quite the Jersey boy and so the name "Jersey" stuck. Then came a name i was actually happy with.. I loves me some canned cheese and my plan was to get a bottle every week and just suck down the plasticy goodness for some quick protein and calcium. However, my pack had other plans.. The end of the bottle ended up depressing with the force of my hiking and i opened up my food bag to find a greasy, wet, ball of cheese through the entirety of the bag. This was 3 days away from town mind you and dumping anything thats not poop onto the ground is very frowned upon. So i had 3 days of picking out bags of ramen noodles, slim jims, and chocolate from the gooey mound of mess i had created. When i had finally reached the hotel room dumping that cheese out was the only thing on my mind. My three bunk mates washed as i globbed out the sticky yellow paste like a waterfall into the trash can. But this was not enough, the cheese seemed to have lined the bag entirely and the only relief was to flood it with shower water. After leaving a slime trail of cheese behind me and generally pissing off everyone in the room the name "cheese wiz" was born.

Bonus shot: thats firewalker in the "casino" (really a backroom with poker chip table clothes stapled to the wall, 2 video slots and a battery powered disco light) in the back of a thrift shop.