The Lord's Prayer sung in Aramaic

Aside from the power and beauty of the music, there's something particularly touching about this, because it's the language in which Jesus originally spoke the prayer to his disciples.

The Fruit of my Labors

Remember all that digging up rocks and building of planters I did last summer? Well here's my reward.

The Temptations - Just my Imagination

"But at night-time, when the house was empty, and there was nothing to do...I'd always think of Jenny."

Spring!

Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

and come away,

for behold, the winter is past;

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth,

the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the dove

is heard in our land.

-- Song of Solomon 2:10-12

Après un Rêve

Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image

Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage,

Tes yeux étaient plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,

Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l'aurore;

Tu m'appelais et je quittais la terre

Pour m'enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,

Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues,

Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entrevues,

Hélas! Hélas! triste réveil des songes

Je t'appelle, ô nuit, rends-moi tes mensonges,

Reviens, reviens radieuse,

Reviens ô nuit mystérieuse!

The Parting Glass

I was thinking about how it would be to take a trip to Ireland and, among other things, visit the place where they craft my pipes (Peterson of Dublin) and the place where they distill my whiskey (Tullamore, County Offaly), and I came across this. I know it's basically just an extended commercial, but still, it's nice. I'd also love to do some "rambling," that is, the gentler British Isles version of hiking, while I'm there.

Thigpen's Wedding

"He wrote your name on my heart in flame, it's a wound I can't erase."

Yes. Precisely.

"I do not myself believe in misfortune; anything to which men give the name is merely the shadow-side of a good." -- George MacDonald

I've been given another reason to do this as a section hike rather than trying to finish the whole thing this year: I have another grandchild due this August. This is the daughter who has had two previous miscarriages, so I think I should really be there.

Also, please pray for the health of mother and child.

"A true Christian life is a life not focused on what others do wrong; a true Christian life is a life that, despite the heresy, hypocrisy, and spiritual blindness surrounding us, focuses quietly on living in chastity, modesty, and humility; it’s a life of constant prayer and gratitude, a life purged of lust and hate, a life without competition, and a life detached from the world and all its sins. And sadly it’s a life that few Christians today have any interest in seeking."

-- Raymond Lloyd Richmond

Considerations

I did my first 12-mile day yesterday. My knee has been doing quite well so far, but yesterday it protested a bit, which means that probably 10 miles a day is going to be my maximum average sustained speed. That's consistent with last time, when it was also after I started to push beyond 12 that the knee really began to give me problems.

Which raises some considerations. Plan A was always to do this as a single through-hike, and that's what I'd still like to do. But there's a math problem: I have 2,053 miles left to go. Taking a single day off each week, which is a necessity for me, I will average 60 miles per week. Assuming that nothing else went wrong (unlikely) and skipping my planned extended break at home, that would still put me at Mt. Katahdin on October 24th--too late.

Also, there's another issue that I was hoping to avoid by starting so early, but not so successfully. There are already a LOT of people on the trail. I've had a couple of nights with 8-12 people at a shelter, and the season hasn't even really started yet. Once the dreaded "bubble" comes along, I'm told that there will be 30 or 40 clustered around a shelter built for 6, trash everywhere, privies destroyed, human waste and dirty t.p. on the side of the trail, and a general spring break atmosphere among the college kids who are out here. Not what I came out to experience.

So I may have to turn this into a section hike, and finish it next year or maybe even the year after. I'm going to wait until I get to Damascus, Va and see how my pace, my knee, and the crowds are doing before I decide. That's still 332 miles away, so by then I should know for sure. At that point I'll decide either to finish the whole thing this year, continue to my house and finish next year, or stop there and divide it into multiple sections, say doing just Virginia next year.

I met a couple on the trail yesterday, very serendipitously, in light of the post I'd made the day before, and we got to talking about the rose and my reasons for walking, and they shared some of their story with me.

He was my age and she was 34 and breathtakingly beautiful. They've been married for ten years and are still completely in love. You know how sometimes you see a woman with her husband and it's just all over her face that she is happy, and loved, and in love? I hope I don't get him in trouble by sharing this, but he told me that the night before, they were in their tent, and she said that there was no one on earth that she'd rather be camped out on top of a mountain with.

Such a lovely story. It's so good to see true love once in a while, to renew your faith.

Milestones

Thought I'd share this with you, since I had to climb a beast of a mountain, plus this rickety old fire tower to get it.

I passed the hundred mile mark yesterday. Today is town day: a shower, a meal, and a bed. The Hobbits had it right.

Goodbye to Georgia

When I got back from my last hike, someone said to me that he knew I wouldn't have made it through the mountains in north Georgia anyway.

As I was walking along the highway a few days ago, on my way from the trail to my last stop in Georgia, I suddenly recalled the other side of the people of my home state: genuine, generous, kind, decent, patriotic, and God-fearing. And I also remembered that I have good memories from my childhood as well as bad ones. And all my bitterness towards this place and my past here evaporated.

And, as if on cue, the last town I stopped in, Hiawassee, turned out to be exactly all the good things I remember about the north Georgia mountains, and which I thought was long gone. Even got some genuine Georgia barbecue; best I've had in ages.

So Georgia and I part as friends.

A Better Day

A Tough Day

Cold, rainy night last night with high winds kept me awake most of the night. Then this morning I woke up to snow and frost. I started the day's hike with too many clothes in the face of a brutally cold wind, then quickly worked up a sweat. So I took off a layer, but the wind chilled me to the bone because I was damp from perspiration. I kept going, thinking that I'd warm back up with exertion, but the wind chill was too much. Ended up with a little case of hypothermia.

I walked to the next shelter which was, thank God, in a little vale mostly sheltered from the wind, changed into something dry, and wrapped myself up in my down quilts. But it still took several hours to get warm, and I lost half the day.

I'm in my hammock now, and feeling okay. A bit dispirited, though, and for some reason very lonely. Don't know why I should be; I'm not any more alone out here than I am at home. Maybe it's the absence of distractions and comforts.