The Return of Thumper and Six Gun Wild

The girls have caught back up to me. Bambi came ridin' into town with a new name, Six Gun Wild. When she introduces herself as Six Gun Wild, she gives her "stand-off stare", and I follow it by whistling the stand off music from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I don't have to tell you, it's pretty bad ass.

Changing names frequently ensures we don't develop too much of a reputation on the trail.  This picture was taken at the drive-thru window at McDonalds. 
  
Hiker Hostels provide clothing for hikers when we are doing laundry. We go for the most ridiculous clothing possible.  Someone asked us if we were in a play.  Not in a play, no... just awesome.









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A Backpacker's Life List by Ryan Grayson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.   

Red and Walkabout

It's so easy to make friends out here. Everyone you meet has something big in common with you, we've all made the choice to live this life on the AT. We met Walkabout a couple weeks ago, but she got 2-3 days ahead of us. Saw her today sitting on Mount Garfield. We meet so many great people and wonder if we'll ever see them again. It's nice to know that the trail is long enough that seeing them again is a possibility.

Zeacliff

Took this picture this morning after leaving the Zealand Hut, where they let us work for stay. They let us sleep under the mess hall tables, gave us free supper, pancakes for breakfast, and a guitar to play. I would have been happy to take a zero day just to play guitar all day. I didn't realize how much I missed it. It alone was worth the folding of blankets and the sweeping of floors.

Last night I slept at the head of one of the tables in the mess hall, Red was sleeping underneath it. When we woke up, two women were sitting at the table enjoying a morning cup of coffee. Red, sorrounded by legs, looked up at them. They recognized him from a presentation he gave the night before to all the guests of the hut about what it's like to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. "I bet you've woken up in stranger places before," one of the women said.

"Umm... No. No, this is the strangest," Red said.

So, these are my beaten all to hell shoes on Zeacliff. They have carried me 360 miles on some very rough terrain. My hope is they will last another 140, even though the smell coming off of them is... well.. it's inhuman. I don't know how else to describe it. FYI, we have not had an opportunity to shower in 10 days. Or wash clothes. Jealous?

I'll be in Lincoln in a couple days. Might look for a dentist, get my tooth fixed, and wait for Thumper and Bambi, who took a couple days off to visit family.

Webster

Got to the Mizpah Hut a few minutes before a thunderstorm poured on us. I was actually hoping for that, it meant the good people at the hut would let us work for stay rather than send us back out in a storm. We got lots of leftover foods for dinner and breakfast and a spot on the floor to sleep. Just had to shake out blankets, fold them, and sweep. A couple hours of work.

Also, summited 8 mountains yesterday!