Back to School

Finally found a school that was fitting my schedule in Sarasota. Cheers to the "Sara Bay Sailing School". I've been in Sarasota a week and had my first sailing lesson; my second and last is coming on Monday. I'm hooked. I'm spending too much on hotels, but the weekly rate is $300 where I'm at and should get me through the schooling. Then I'm out to find a boat. I may already have one in my sights.

The Heat

I've been sweating since I got into Florida. I made a mad dash down to St. Augustine FL after a last good by with the family in KY. I arrived early in the morning 3 days ago and had a series of good encounters that led me to the sailing school in town, and put me in touch with some other folks in the sail biz in town.

The sailing school will let me audit the courses I want, for half price, but that will be in mid February. There is also a large chance that I'll get bumped out by someone willing to pay full price. So, I started wandering south on the A1A route looking for marinas as I went. Haven't been very lucky finding free sailing lessons or even inexpensive ones. I finally broke down and did the "planning" thing by looking up phone numbers and addresses of schools on-line. I had been doing my searching by phone book and word of mouth, but gosh... I can only move so slow :)

I've met a few drunken sailors that had lots of advice... mainly that I should just buy a boat and go for it. Folks at the marinas and hotels are very helpful... People are great!

I'm done looking up schools, so I'm off again to call all these schools to see if I can audit something tomorrow instead of next month. I'm too impatient sometimes. I should work on being eager and patient.

Time to get moving

It has been a bit over 6 months since I quit my job to go putting around. I spent about 5 months on the Appalachian Trail and the rest recovering from surgery. How did I fill the recovery time?

• bought a car
• recovered from surgery
• settled an incorrect tax delinquency claim
• started a new bank account
• tracked down my bounce boxes from the trail
• read a ton of books
• saw pounds of movies
  
• hung out with family
• had beer in redneck bars
• installed a floor
• cleaned gutters
• dug ditches
• took lots of baths
• tried to figure out the $48,000 hospital bills
  

I'm feeling good again, have nearly everything squared away, and have a bad case of cabin fever. Tomorrow I'm headed off to Florida to learn how to sail and figure out what I'm doing next.

The basic idea to to head south, and turn left at the Florida border to follow the coast line south. Live out of the car while trying to get as much time on sail boats as possible. Maybe take a class, maybe just make friends with boats by looking salty on the docks. I'm super excited to get out on the water in a sail boat.

Fingers crossed... I'll try to get some sleep tonight so I'm less likely to sleep during the drive.

End of Days; resting no more

After, to my my mind, a lengthy recovery from my surgery, I'm ready to head back out to continue my adventures. I'll be heading south to Florida to learn how to sail. If things go well, I hope to travel by boat to whatever places open up for me. I'm not picky, any destination will do.

Living aboard sounds like a lot of fun to me. Though, I'll start with a class and some time spent doing day sails. After I'm comfortable, assuming I still enjoy it, I'll try getting onto someone's boat for a longer cruise.

Although I'm sad that I didn't finish my Appalachian Trail thru-hike in one go, I do plan on finishing it at some point. I'd resume it now, but I'm not back up to full strength yet and finishing the hike in cold weather doesn't excite me. I really enjoy hiking in spring and summer because of the growth going on. Winter isn't as satisfying. Besides, it's darn cold.

Done with PNC Bank

PNC has finally pushed me away. After a few failures to send out checks entered for automatic bill payments, and being dinged $20 bucks a month for low account balances in what used to be a free checking account I am leaving them. It's been a 10 year relationship, but it will be over soon. At one time I would have missed them, but now I'm looking forward to moving on. Hopefully I won't be hurt again.

Brrrrr-eaking the cold weather gear out (with new ER twist)

We're getting some colder temperatures out here these days. I've been getting down to freezing at night, though not long enough to freeze my water bottles. Luckily the rain we got recently has filled up the springs and streams, so there is actually water in my bottles ready to freeze. I've very excited about the wool long underwear that is sitting about a mile away from here at the Rendezvous Motel, where I'm staying tonight. The hourly rate is very reasonable here in Pearisburg VA.

The leaves are starting to be past their prime, and are mostly brown now rather than the great color show that was going on as recently as last week. If I had to make a complaint (of which, I really do have very few), it would be that the deep leave cover on the ground makes following the trail hard. When the trail is visible, if covered, the leaves make travel hard due to not being able to see the pointy rocks, holes, or tripping roots. Even when [not finished due to time limit in the library]

Now with Medical TV Flavor:

So... a bunch has happened in the last week. It all basically boils down to: after I wrote that text above, I went to get more food (5 plates of all you can eat chinese!), and later that night suffered incredible stomach cramps, vomiting and fever. I thought this could have been a stomach virus or food poisoning, so I waited it out for 4 days. Two of those I was being baby-sat by a very helpful hiker buddy. After 4 days I was finally convinced that medical help was needed, and was sent to the ER where fluids were alternately (well... sometimes simultaneously) pumped into and out of me.

They found that a gall stone had probably passed through my pancreas, an infection was raging in my still stone filled gall bladder, and that my gall bladder wussed out and ruptured. So, they gutted me, taking out the gall bladder, and hosed all the bile and infected material out of my torso. Well... do you still call it being gutted if they use 3 tiny holes instead of a large ragged gash?

The good news is that

• I didn't die (oh yeah! they said I could have in those first 24 hours of agony),
• though the stone wasn't the biggest, nor was the gall bladder wall the thickest, the doctor did proclaim that my rupture was the messiest he's seen in over 1000 gall bladder surgeries
• I'll need just a couple more weeks of recovery time.
• the swelling around the incision area has migrated south on my torso, doing what all those spam e-mails claim, but without herbs (though only temporarily, painfully, and unusably)

I'm resting up at our Kentucky sanatorium (AKA, the folk's home). I will decide a bit later on if I'm going to continue to finish the trail this year, or if I'm going to move on to my next adventure. Either way, if you see folks on the trail who know me, pass on the news: "he's not dead yet. you may still have to see him again."

Ah... and just to protect the all-you-can-eat chinese place (because it was good eats)... it wasn't their food that did me in. The fats/oils just triggered what was already going to happen. I could have just as easily been stricken after drinking a bottle of EVOO or eating a stick of butter as in my normal food-dreams.

Are you VA-jellin'? or Virginia Wolfe meets Dr. Sholes. or VA, VA, VA, boom.

Man, can I move slow when I don't want to. I've "Virginia creeper"-ed along, managing to break 50 mile weeks for the last two weeks or so. I've recently visited with, or stayed with friends and/or family of friends a few times, taken a side road trip, been stricken with the common cold, and developed a possibly pus-filled pocket in one of my perambulation providers (got a cyst or some other fun-filled bump in my knee).

Thanks guys who put me up for the night! It was greatly appreciated. Home cooked food and hot baths (yes, more than one!) are so much better when you get them after a long wait (so far about 4 1/2 months on the trail).

I took a 200 mile detour back to Gettysburg with a couple other hikers to go to a long distance hiker gathering. It's strange to go so fast, especially backward to places I didn't think I'd see again until much later. Off in the distance from Gettysburg, you can see the mountains we walked across headed south on the trail. Luckily, we didn't have to walk back.

Somewhere along the line I picked up a cold and just didn't have the wind to keep walking all day. I popped off to a hotel just outside of the Shenandoahs for a few days to recover.

I have a bubble in my left knee! Who knows what's in there, but we may find out soon. I'll try to take pictures, cause I hear it could get colorful, and fountain-like. Looking forward to jabbing it with something sharp. Just waiting for a large enough audience.

Last night, my tent pole broke in two places. Yes I was sober, and paying attention this time. Mountain Hardware is sending a replacement at my next trail stop. I've never had such good service... It took about 2 minutes to get everything taken care of; very painless. Very happy.

I'm having a blast with the banjo... getting OK at a couple of songs, and close to being able to sing one... right now, I can only say the song rather than sing it.

I saw 4 more bears... total = 7. And all of them ran away, proving hiker smell beats bear aggression.

I'm in another Waynesboro (this time in VA), at the 1325 mile marker on the trail. So only another 848 miles to go.

there is still so much to tell that I can't get out in these 20 minute computer time slots. May be staying in town another night... so possibly another edition tomorrow.

Ciao, and miss all you guys. Just not enough to come back yet :) Oh... and a teaser... I may have figured out what to do when I'm done walking (besides sitting down for a long time). Until next time, I'm mostly still walking, and always still having a blast!