Numismatics

          Sitting here at my desk with my notebook open and various office supplies spread about the surface. There's a small amount of pocket change directly to my left. I'm holding a penny that was minted way back in 1973, 37 years ago. I'm guessing if this coin could talk it would have a quite a story to tell, from world traveling to decades of storage in change jars around the country. It probably sat for years and years in various peoples change piles, under seats of cars, and having been found on the floor by countless janitors and school children alike. I can see why coin collecting can be an interesting hobby. Taped to the page is a coin given to me for collecting 4 payments or more (I collected 7) for the day here in the Debt Collections Dept. of Chase Bank. This coin would say "I got taped to a page in a journal for X number of years".

Schaumburg IL to Algoma WI Cannonball Run

 

    We're going back maybe 15 years for this one but I love this story. My Grandpa Pete was a man very set in his ways. He and my Grandma Ruth never traveled, ever. There's two fundamental problems with travel as he saw it; 1) Hotels are too noisy what with the elevator and the ice machine. 2) Relatives spare rooms are out of the question because it's probably going to be too hot and he can't sleep. Some holidays and rare occasions he would have no choice but to make the 250 mile trek from his home in Southern Door County WI to my parents house in Illinois. They would, without question, be driving home the same day. A four and a half hour drive to the average motorist one way. At some point in the stillness of rural WI my Grandpa became obsessed with trying to make the trip in record time. I recall he had made it in a blistering sub 3 hours. In a Buick Regal no less. Worth mentioning, as long as I remember his various cars, all big body Buicks, over the years the same Willy Nelson cassette tape made it's way into every one of them.
      Recently I asked my Dad about it. He knew exactly what i was talking about. "The Guy was nuts!!!!", he says. He told me how he and my Uncle had to have a "talk" with him. Asking him to stop what he was doing. He didn't listen of course and they ended up refusing to get in a car with him even on short trips around WI. He would run stop signs as if they weren't there. My Grandpa, as it turns out, would leave to drive all the way home and as soon as he would arrive he'd run to the phone to call my Dad just to make sure he knew how fast he'd made it in.
    His 3 hour record puts his average speed at least 85mph, and don't forget you have to stop for gas once. As far as I know he got only one ticket in the three attempts each year for roughly 5 years of the project, although it was a $900 ticket. He asked the police officer to give him a break and the officers responded "no one gets a break at 40mph over the limit".
   Grandpa Pete was a cool guy and, despite safety concerns, that's an awesome idea for someone to be so passionately adhered too. He passed away a few years ago and the record still stands. I think it'll stand for years to come.

The Lawn Job

    The year is 1991, I'm 10 yrs old, and I was spending my summer as I always had, playing basketball, riding my bike, and building forts and club houses with the other kids on my street. Once in a while we would have a falling out as any group of children would. This occasion the particularly pompous kid, he was an only child, down the street, Danny Cristo, was not our friend. Well, one day Steve Lackic and I were hanging around outside when this older kid across the street, he was between 16 and 18 at the time, Brian, had a friend drive up in a Chevy Blazer. He drove right up on the lawn. This definitely got our attention. Somehow Steve and I, two 10 year olds, with little to no convincing talked the guy into doing a lawn job on Danny's front yard. This dude piles up both Steve and myself into his truck and tears down the street and around the block with heavy medal music blasting in our ears. Within a few seconds we're pulled up on the kids lawn when puts the gas pedal all the way to the floor. It felt like we were in a monster truck. The engine roared and the truck lurched backward! Grass was flying up on both sides of the truck as we did a perfect 180 degree spin in a snap, and then in a cloud of dirt and dust the truck hit the pavement and peeled off down the street.
    He let us out around the corner where we walked home. The next day Danny's Dad was seen hosing the grass down with a garden hose in his typical fashion. A wife beater, boxer shorts, and slippers. I can only imagine what he was thinking standing there facing the complete destruction that was his front lawn. That was so awesome and it may be the reason why I bought my red pickup truck so many years ago. That was so fun!

Right around sundown on the Appalachian Trail

Backpacking Food Guide

Backpacking Food - This is only a guide.

Cookpot

Rice sides

Noodle sides

Mac n cheese (not shells and cheese)

couscous

ramen noodles

dehydrated anything

Oatmeal
Instant Mashed Potatoes (There's all these great flavors out. All of them are great)

Meat Packets

beef crumbles

chicken

tuna

salmon

Spam
Pepperoni slices
summer sausage
smoked salmon

cheese (lasts 30 days in your pack)

Cheddar

habanero cheddar

gouda

breads

Tortillas

bagels

Spreads

peanut butter

nutella

Bars/snack food

protein bars

granola bars
Hershey Bars to dip in PB! (no amount of chocolate is too much)

snicker

payday

baby Ruths

Nutrageous
Pop Tarts
Trail mix
Bag of cereal (light weight and surprisingly good)

Reese’s Fucking anything!!!

Misc

Salt n pepper

Fritos
Cheetos

Hot sauce (crucial)

Cajun Seasoning

Instant Coffee

Gatorade packets
Taco Bell sauce packets
Mayo Packets

Things to consider; Get creative. The hardest thing in planning your food bag is understanding how little you actually will eat. You pack your fears. People tend to make one of two mistakes; either you carry way too much food and dance on the edge of running out of water or you carry next to no food and carry huge amounts of water despite an abundance of naturals springs. You can actually hike just fine with out cooking at all. I ate cold for 2 and a half months straight and never missed the stove ever. Everything listed under "Cookpot" you might consider adding a meat packet of your choice to. Like a mexican flavor Rice Side goes great with Taco flavored beef crumbles [wrapped in a tortilla with cheese] or a Alfredo Noodle Side is great with a tuna packet added to it. You may have heard the term "Ramen Bomb" that's when you make ramen noodles then put a packet of instant potatoes into it at the end of cooking. This is disgusting and sits like a rock in your stomach. In regards to cooking equipment, a good cook pot should work on multiple fuel sources. You can easily share any stove with someone, and should you run out of fuel it's great to be able to simply build a small fire and cook that way. Simply by forming the fire into a horseshoe and setting the pot down in it. Fuel becomes less critical and infinitely more abundant. I recommend the Stanley Cook pot but if you have some doe ray me then there's some really nice titanium pots. The Biolite stove that charges your phone is the worst choice. Mountain House meals, backpackers Pantry, or any of those dehydrated meals sold at REI are a poor choice for many reasons, here's a few; expensive, one doesn't fill you up, they're bulky, and eventually you're gonna eat the oxygen absorbing packet hidden in the bottom. They are, however, a great choice in a 3 or 4 day trip as a dinner option in conjunction with breakfast and lunch as described in the example below, additionally, should you get them free, the ones that contain egg will certainly give you the shits and are to be avoided. A Mountain House for dinner and regular store bought food as breakfast and lunch is a very smart plan for a short backpack trip. The cook stove, fuel, spork, and pot should pack up small and light. Think Cantaloupe. Worth mentioning; McDonalds burgers, plain, will last 5 days in your pack, a sub sandwich will last 2 days in reasonable heat. So don't be afraid to bring some leftovers.

Here's an example of one day on the trail:

• Breakfast- Bagel
• Lunch- wrap half the packet of pepperoni and a few chunks of cheese into 2 tortillas. Enjoy with the gatorade you mixed earlier. Supplement with a handful of Fritos.
• Snacks- protein bar and 2 granola bars (throughout the day)
• Dinner- One couscous box (garlic flavor) (cooked). eat a stack of pepperoni while you cook it and have a few fist loads of Fritos.
• Desert- Snicker bar

It's backpacking not a culinary adventure. I'll try and get some better examples and menu plans together. Remember that while you HYOH.

Backpacking Gear List

Backpacking gear list- This is only a guide

• Pack / rainfly

• Tent / stakes and poles

• Sleeping bag (30 or 40 deg is warm enough) / pad / ground sheet (optional, thin sheet of Tyvek is perfect)

• Water filter (I recommend the Sawyer Squeeze or steri pen) / bottles 2x 32oz

• Cook pot / stove / fuel / spork. (the small size fuel can lasts 2 weeks)

• clothes- 1 light jacket, 1 Raincoat or poncho, 1 long sleeve thermal, 1 T-shirt, 1 underwear, 2 pairs of socks, light shorts, small drawstring bag to hold it all. (this doesn’t include what you’re already wearing which would be Hiking pants (quick dry), a tech T, socks, underwear, shoes, camp shoes (crocs)

• Toiletries bag- toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet paper (i recommend coleman biowipes), first aid kit, lighter, bug spray, small Dr. Bronners, 50ft of paracord, 1 small carabiner, headphones, external battery to charge your cell phone, pocket knife, sunglasses

• Map- also have a pen and small compass (zipper fob type compass is more than enough). put it all in a freezer bag.

• Roll top dry bags- 1 10-20L to serve as a food bag, 1 20L to keep your sleeping bag and clothes bag dry in your pack, 1 8L to hold your Toiletries. Silnylon or the rubberized style waterproof bag is fine. whichever you prefer. You’re also going to want a few freezer bags.

• Trekking poles- I recommend it. They seem silly until you are balancing 30lbs on your back and trying to get across jagged boulders. Still not convinced, give someone a piggyback ride and try and climb over your car without using your hands.

• Things to consider: Your clothes should be able to dry fast. Cotton socks will destroy your feet by holding in moisture. Hiking boots are a thing of the past. Consider a trail running shoe and a thin merino wool sock. The Sawyer Mini water filter is incredibly difficult to squeeze water through, I use the regular size, both, however, are rendered useless if you let it freeze solid. A firearm is the most amateur thing to carry on the trail. So is bear spray. If you are afraid of bears then maybe give up on the outdoors. Bears are harmless and if you understand them then you'd learn how to avoid problems and how not dangerous they are. Your pack should weigh about 30lbs or less with food and 32oz of water, if it’s much more than this then I’ll be happy to help you go through your gear to find out what you're afraid of, council you on it, and remove the excess. You pack your fears. The small drawstring bag holding your clothes is also your pillow. You've probably seen people who put a trash bag in their pack as a liner to keep water out. This is a good idea but if everything except your tent is in it's own water tight bag, like a roll top or a freezer bag, then that's just as good, if not better. I skip the trash bag liner because they get holes in them pretty quickly. HYOH.

*in regards to filtering water. This is always a source of debate and discussion. I recommend the regular size sawyer squeeze. It's easy to use, works well, and is small and light. You simply fill a bag from a water source, screw the filter on, and squeeze the water through into a bottle or your face. The Sawyer mini is very difficult to get water through and can pop your bag. UV filters, like the steri pen, are a great choice and I may go to this option myself. The only draw back, which I'm cool with, is that you can end up drinking a small amount of particulate like dirt or sand from a water source. Other filters on the market all seem to have something about them that causes them to not be very practical. Purifying tablets and bleach drops work fine too but the water will taste like sulfer and who wants that when you're drinking from the most beautiful mountain springs that taste so fresh. The spring water was one of my favorite parts of my AT thru hike. Now, I'm going to say this but please don't go all crazy, I didn't filter water for the entire second half of my hike. For 2 and a half months I didn't get sick. Water is safer than you think but that doesn't mean every drop of water out there is fair game. Use your head. Here's the criteria to look for; 1)  do you know it's source? 2) is there no agricultural or human development nearby? 3) is the water cold? 4) narrow 5) and lastly, is it fast moving? If you can answer yes to all those then by all means enjoy that shit. Raw dog it. Camel up, as they say. The water issue, I think, taps into people's fear of what they don't know. It's funny to watch someone drink water they filtered for the first time. Lastly, agricultural run off, a stream of water passing through farmland. There is nothing you can do to make that safe to drink. Boil it, squeeze filter it, fucking distill that shit and you'll still end up puking out both ends on your way to the ER.

Strange things happen in three out on the AT

(Notes on the photo; I took several pictures with my camera and used them to form this panoramic from that day as best I could. This is not a fabrication, I assure you)


                      There’s a saying "The trail will provide" that, as you continue along your hike, becomes something to take comfort in. Moments when food is provided or water sources found after fully accepting a hopeless situation and the only explanation is that the trail provided. I certainly do feel the trail has the power to influence one’s thru hike. Every hiker who sets foot on the AT is looking for personal growth in some form or another. The lessons you expect to learn are rarely what you take away with you. The trail has something unique to teach each and everyone out there. One enters the secular pilgrimage open to experience and growth. Without question, I too found growth that I rely upon everyday. On my AT thru hike there were three separate occasions where I found myself stopped dead in my tracks with no possible way to explain what just happened. I'd like to share those experiences with you.
                      About a month into the hike this happened; it's Saturday and it's rained all day. 47 degrees out, 16 miles from Ice Mountain shelter to Jerry's Cabin shelter. I'm sitting next to a guy who goes by the trail name Shortcut and he looks exactly like my grandpa Pete in every way. He's even wearing his winter hat the same way my Grandpa wore his by not folding it at the bottom causing it to form a nipple shape on top of his head. We didn't get a chance to talk because he got in his sleeping bag and went to sleep just after we got there. I didn't connect the dots until several miles into the following day but Grandpa Pete's real first name was Jerry.
                     Now I'm in Vermont and I posted a photo with text across the front that read "Don't be afraid to move on and start a new chapter" with it I included a little caption that, in summary said how glad I was that I decided to hike the trail and how great the whole experience was going.  The mother of my best friend from high school reached out to me with a text saying how inspirational my journey has been. She went on to say how I gave her that little extra motivation she needed to take a leap of her own. She was planning to enroll in school for Chaplaincy. The next day I reached Stratton Pond and took a break with another thru hiker, an older retired gentleman. Stratton Pond is famous for being the very spot where Benton Mackaye, in the 1930's, would have the very idea for what would be the Appalachian Trail. Sitting here looking out on the lake I tell my friend I'm going to get moving and hike out. I drag my pack closer to me and start getting ready when he asks me to pass him his backpack as it's slumped over in the grass on the other side of me. I drag it up onto my lap and notice a patch is sewn to the edge of the waistband. It read "Trail Chaplaincy, hiking in the spirit of the journey". I stared at that patch for a few long seconds.
                      The last day of the entire journey, the day I arrive to Abol Bridge campground after five months of hiking; The tent site we've been given has the greatest view of Khatadin, a massive and wondrous mountain serving as the northern end of the trail. The mountain is elusive, mythical, and sacred ground to indigenous people of the area. So many people dream of hiking the trail in its entirety yet so few make it. We'd summit Khatadin the following day completing the thru hike. It's raining out, as it did most days in Maine. Suddenly the rain stops and the sky begins to clear so I move to sit on the picnic table facing the mountain. As the clouds are parting, just to the east of the mountain, appears a rainbow. Bright blue skies over the mountain I've been almost afraid to talk about is standing right before me, and a bright rainbow should appear. This moment was powerful.
                     An AT thru hike is a secular pilgrimage of the grandest proportions. I'm blessed to have been a part of it. I'm grateful for these experiences and I wouldn't trade them for anything. The reality we live in is a mere fraction of whats going on around us. Try to open your heart and see it. The lessons you’ll learn are yours.