Finished!!!

Ha, made you look. Remember Scott Jurek?

He did it! He beat the world record for completing the entire Appalachian Trail in 46 days, 8 hrs and 8 minutes beating the record by a mere 3.5 hours! 

He was sick and injured but gotter done and summitted Katahdin with his wife on her birthday seen here mugging each other. Congratulations Scott and tx for actually stoppin to say hello, you're a class act.

I'm finding NEMO to be a fair, responsive and reputable company. Remember this tent?

Well last Wednesday night at 9:15 while pumping the second of two air beams, the front one popped leaving it to be held up by two strings and a trekking pole looking like this:

Pretty! Ran into Luray VA emailing when possible. By 4:30pm on Thursday NEMO credited me full price for what I had paid in Feb and Fedexed this one to Luray by 12:30 Friday:

Sparky is very happy. Family can readily attest, Sparky no fun to be around when he not happy.

The  fists full of blueberries at the start of Virginia that were replaced by blackberries in the middle have now been replaced by raspberries at its end:

There are millions! What a wonderful unexpected surprise.

Shenandoah National park is finished but not before this little guy said peekaboo 

And then there were two!

S'cute. Reminds me, since this is the memory post, I once had a cabin of 18 female campers around 12-14 yrs old. They came to me one morning complaining of a mouse in the cabin the night before. That afternoon when all the girls were in the cabin I went in with a trap (not what some call a humane kind but the kind I call most effective......snap!)

Before setting trap I explained the mouse was a field mouse, the same exact kind of mouse people buy as pets. The life or death debate which ensued made Congress sound like a picnic. Nevertheless, Freddy the field mouse had assumed room temp by the next morning and at least some were happy.

Speaking of things that multiply. Do u see a problem or two with this sign?

I do. Has Smoky gone back now to remove it? What does Smoky think a hiker will do, take a pic and post it on a blog or something? What about the turtles, ya think since they only have 3 days a year that they really give a royal rats rooney if we watch? And since when is Smoky an expert on anything but preventing forest fires? Ya think hikers have a lil too much time to think? Perhaps.

I've gotten the impression from some innocent comments that some consider this hike as rather like an escape or a happy go lucky lala in the woods for 6 months. Well in some ways it is. But as we know Satan never sleeps and indeed there have been at least 3 occurances already that have nearly thwarted and ended this trek. A few know of some none of which is a dead tent but without enumerating, know that we are all in this together, and as I'm reminded, trying to navigate between struggles and hardships and savor the flavor of those times when life's nasties aren't bombarding us. Each Sunday I listen to my list of Christian music. Today I thought of some of you that I know are or have been hammered when I heard this song by a group my kiddies and I saw, check YouTube or just buy it if you don't already own it. It mentions many of us.

My daily prayer list grew again today, please don't hesitate.

Concentrate on trying to keep in step vs trying to anticipate.

Peace