We went on the long awaited Appalachian Trail Hike this weekend. Started on Saturday at 3am (EST), time zone matters because I flew in about midnight from CST which made for less than 2 hours total sleep included the nap to the trail. Day one was uneventful other than the trail was really pretty and proved I am in much WORSE shape than I thought I was. My right knee pooped out at about 7 miles of up and down, unfortunately we were going 8.5 miles that day. Kevin Jr. started feeling poorly that evening but survived fine.
Sunday morning started at about 5:30am with Kevin Jr. throwing up all over him, me and the tent (who needs an alarm clock!). After cleaning up best we could decided to push on with the group, not that we had a lot of choice. I learned that on the AT Trail it is an all or none adventure. There are no stores, payphones, or taxi-cabs along the way. After a bland breakfast Jr. made it about 1 hour and was sick again. We struggled through 7.1 miles till our lunch break and Jr. was feeling better, but had still not tried to eat anything. By this time Danny and Daniel were also sick but had not tossed their cookies yet.
Jr. ate some lunch and we packed on about 2 miles when it all started again. At this point we decided that this was not a safe situation with the heat and exertion, coupled with very few out points on the trail. We backtracked the 2.6 miles to a Hostel who we hired a ride to Johnson City, TN. That is another posting.
Our AT experience lasted 2 days and 20.2 miles. We dealt with the no sleep, fear of bears, PUDS (pointless ups and downs), met some nice and strange folks, diarrhea/vomiting, and how to get to a city that was 29 miles away with no car, not knowing anyone, and no phone. All-in-all it was a great time and hope to do it again under different circumstances.
Owe Yeah - the sickness was due to tainted sweet iced tea from Bojangles that Kevin, Danny and Daniel drank. Before it was over, the rest of the team abandoned the trail due to illness and we all made it back to Sanford about 3 AM on Monday.
Some thru-hikers we turned out to be!
