Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Best of the 80s, and more!

Mile 788
Brown Mountain Creek Shelter, VA

Imagine: you are walking the Appalachian Trail.

Yesterday the temperature reached one hundred and two degrees. Today the heat is breaking, and a muscular thunderstorm broaches the horizon. It comes out of nowhere while you are on a rocky outcrop at the bad end of a three thousand foot climb. BOOM. Lightning shakes the mountain from under your feet, and eleven inches of rain falls in less than four hours. The trail is an ankle-deep creek filling your shoes, and the tiny stream that was once a water source is now a raging torrent, waist-deep water smashing a cliffside far below. What comes into your mind at times like this?

Carribean Queen!
Now we're sharing the same dream!
And our hearts will beat as one
No more love on the run!

Yes, I am the walking eighties station. When the going gets tough, the tough get Phil Collins. I've plagued so many shelters with "Easy Lover" that I should probably send Phil royalties. And let's not forget "Lucky Star", "Take My Breath Away", and God knows what other musical trainwrecks that have haunted my uphill pace since I entered Virginia.

It's time for Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice tonight, to which I am adding some homemade smoked peppers I purchased at a roadside stand near Buena Vista. Tomorrow's walk to the privy, I might be taking the "highway to the danger zone"

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