OATMEAL PIES

Melissa called me just as she was opening her shipment from Erwin, TN. Oatmeal Pies!! Was her exclamation. Rachel ‘Rabbit’ had given me some Little Debbie Oatmeal Pies to send along with some other treats and a letter in the Erwin shipment. She was very excited to open up the box and find little gifts for her along with Jordan’s food. Oatmeal Pies are among her favorite foods, and they are perfect to hike with. Little weight for a delicious snack. FYI: If you want to give send her something let me know, and I’ll make arrangements to get it from you and put it into one of Tripwires food shipments.

She has been completely out of range the entire time since Erwin and only had a sketchy signal in Erwin. She had to use the time to catch up on some ‘normal world’ stuff so this was the first time she was able to give us a full rundown. If you decide to hike the A.T. , make sure your provider is either Verizon or Sprint. They have the best signal all along the trail.

I have lots of mile marks to put up on the trail, plus she caught us up on the different campsites and shelters she stayed in from Erwin to last night. I will spread these out over the next few posts to make for easier reading and to keep a better flow to the blog.

Right now, Christina’s parents visited with them and Pete ‘Tail Wind’ was back hiking with them for the weekend. They 'Slack hiked’ the Sat and Today. That is when you drop some or all of your pack and send it to the next stop, so you can hike without much, or any, pack weight. Margaret carried the packs forward so all they have needed to carry since Friday night was water filter, bottles, and food enough to get them from point A to B. Jordan carried their food and water gear so they were able to carry almost nothing while putting miles on this weekend.

They put on their highest mileage day on Friday. 23 MILES!!! And that was with full packs. They have only slack packed Saturday and today. They expect to put on even bigger days, with pack weight, once they hit the Virginia stretch of the Appalachian Trail. VA is very level throughout the entire state, so GAP will no longer be a foul word they have to deal with very much.

So there you have it. I will be posting a simultaneous post with this one giving you some common trail terms. Many people have asked what the terms I’ve already used in the blog mean, so when Melissa called tonight for a few minutes, I wrote up a good list of definitions. Everyone gathered around the campfire helped.

The next post after definitions, I’ll relay an ironic experience Hollywood had coming out of Erwin.