Visualize It

What the Gulf oil spill would look like if it were in Asheville. Click to make bigger.

From http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

Plans

Other than large amounts of time spent waiting, the dental thing went pretty well the other day. Several of my teeth are in rough shape and are going to need a considerable amount of dentist’s attention. Which comes as no real shock to me. Per my customary habit of procrastination, I’ve avoided anything resembling a dentist for quite a number of years. But a lifetime of poor brushing & flossing habits, an overly sugary diet (damn those tasty soft drinks), 15 years of smoking cigarettes, and a long genetic history of brittle teeth (thanks Dad) have finally taken their toll.

It’s going to be a bit before I can get anything done though. They’re booked until mid-May and I can’t get an appointment any earlier. Of course if something happens like another toothache or infection before May, then they can work me in earlier. But otherwise it’ll be roughly 2 months before I go back. There’s no way around it though, I’ve avoided my toothy problems for far too long. Which adds a rather large twist to my previous plan.

Initially I had intended to get dropped off at Max Patch and continue my trek of the AT this Spring-Summer. I briefly thought about starting the whole thing over again from Springer Mtn in Georgia, but that thought didn’t last very long. The 250 miles I’ve already done aren’t much in the entire 2,200-ish mile length of the AT, but I’d rather not do them again right now. That technically makes me a section-hiker at this point, but I’m cool with that. Hike your own Hike, and all. But I now have 3 dental appointments scheduled from May 18th-June15th that can’t be skipped…so the hiking logistics require a bit more than a “start here and go north for as far as I can” strategy.

With all three appointments spaced out like they are, I’ll be off the Trail for about 3-4 weeks. The first two appointments are within days of each other but there’s a 2½ week span of time between the last two. I figure I’ll want a few days of recovery time after all the toothwork, so that leaves me with roughly 2 weeks of lost hiking time. Two weeks that I’d rather not lose. Since I’m lucky enough to live within an hour’s drive of several places where the AT crosses roads, I came up with a tentatively modified plan:

Instead of starting where I stopped last year at Max Patch, I’m going to skip ahead 75 miles or so to a little place called Spivey Gap, near Erwin, TN, and start there. I’ll go as far as I can from this Saturday ‘til just before my first appointment in mid-May, and then head back home. Then in the 2 weeks I have between appointments, I’ll do the stretch from Max Patch to Spivey Gap and head back home again. Once the final appointment is over I’ll hop back on where I stopped initially and continue from there.

So for a timeline of sorts:

• Springer to Max Patch…Last Year
• Max Patch to Spivey Gap…skip for now
• Spivey Gap to “As Far As I Can Go”…March 20, 2010 to Mid-May, 2010
• ---Icky dental stuff happens here---
• Max Patch to Spivey Gap…2 week downtime
• ---More icky dental stuff---
• “As Far As I Went Before” to Katahdin…Early June 2010 to whenever

It makes it kind of a hodge-podge hike instead of a single straight shot, but it’ll add an unusual spin to things. And I tend to like things on the unusual side anyway.

Slotting 2 weeks to do the 75 mile stretch from Max Patch to Spivey Gap may seem like a generous estimate but there are several factors involved in that time frame.

1. I’m a “smell the roses” type of hiker, so I tend to go slower than the usual AT-autobahn that many hikers seem to be on (not that there’s anything wrong with that…Hike your own Hike).
2. The stretch of the AT between Hot Springs and Erwin is notorious for being on the strenuous side. Quite a few of the books and journals I’ve read cite Erwin, TN as a place where many hopeful AT hikes come to an end due to injuries. I want to be able to take my time and not hurt any body part I may need later. I don’t want this year to end like last year.
3. After all the initial dental work I may not feel like doing much besides resting anyway.

So slotting 2 weeks for it seems like a good idea to me.

Lake Powhatan

I went for a little walking hike around Lake Powhatan and Bent Creek yesterday. The weather was a little on the chilly side but once I got moving the chill actually felt pretty good. I’d never been to the Lake Powhatan area before and was pleasantly surprised by it. The Lake was very cool and peaceful and it had loads of biking and hiking trails crisscrossed around.

The bit of Bent Creek I saw there was cool too. There was an old mill in the area back in the day and you can still see some of the masonry flume walls around. Also saw a link from a very old chain slowly rusting away in a spring leading into the creek, so that was cool. Love finding little bits of the past in unexpected places like that.

Today’s already started out dreary and the next couple of days are supposed to be the same, so the plan is to stay inside and putter around the house wasting time. Should be easy for me to do.

Making a big meaty beef stew in the crock pot too, so at lest there’s something good to look forward to on a cold wintry day like today.



Pics.

Lost

It was raining when I got up on Saturday morning and continued on and off over the day. And since I felt like I was fighting off the beginning of a cold, I decided to turn it into a marathon TV type of weekend.

When I left for the Trail last spring, I missed out on the second half of Lost. I was able to see enough of the early season to know they were going to whip the storyline all over the time-space continuum, but I never knew how it ended. So recently a friend loaned me a copy of the entire season, and I spent the weekend catching up on all of the episodes.

I’ve talked about it before, but one of my all-time biggest annoyances is spoilers. Of any kind. Telling me what’s going to happen in something I haven’t seen or read or experienced before is a quick and almost sure-fire way to piss me off. So on the tiny possibility that some random surfer happens to wander by here and read my ramblings hasn’t seen it yet, I won’t spoil it for you.

I will say this though: Loved it.

Ice Water

Didn’t accomplish much this weekend; it was too cold to do much more than stay in and try to keep warm. I did head out for a bit on a random drive Saturday afternoon. Drove towards the Blue Ridge Parkway (it’s closed due to winter weather though) and ended up driving south along the French Broad River towards Brevard.

Just as I went under the Parkway, I drove by a small park along the river and noticed something odd. There were trees leaning over along the bank with the tips of their branches dangling in the water, and everywhere they touched there was a white patch of ice. It looked kinda cool from the car so later when I turned around, I decided to stop at the park on my way back home.

It ended up being one of those things that you randomly do on a random drive that became the memory that makes the day special.

Not only was there ice formed on the tree branches, it was covering everything near the bank. It had formed in these cool ripple shapes from the water moving over it, and even had a layer of snow on it in places. I didn’t get many pics since I didn’t have any gloves and the wind was gusting constantly, driving the temps well below 0 ºF. In the few minutes it took to snap a dozen or so pics, my hands were burning they were so cold.

Very, very glad I stopped though.

All the pics are here.

Avatar

So I finally made it out to see "Avatar" this afternoon. I've seen previews for it for a while now but it wasn't really one of those "must see" movies for me. It looked cool and all, but I wasn't so sure the plot would be anything I haven't seen before, and the 3D aspect of it gave me second thoughts. But my life is completely SciFi-free and has been for a while, so I needed a hit in a bad way.

No spoilers so...overall I'll say that it was an ok movie. It satisfied my SciFi needs (for a bit). I'd give it 3 out of 5; 'bout in the middle of things.

$7 for a matinee, plus $3.50 "surcharge" for the 3D effects kinda sucked ass though. It's no wonder movie theatres are doing so poorly.

Welcome to the Future

When I was growing up, the year 2010 sounded made up. A lot of people were hung up on the year 2000 being the big one, what with the whole millennium thing and all. But for me it was always 2010 that did it. Not only would 2000 have already happened in this future world, but it would have been a whole decade later!

It sounded like it was impossibly far into the future to actually be a real year someday. Plus look at it; the number itself just looks odd. Never in my wildest dreams (at age 8ish or so) did I think I’d someday been living in 2010. The 80s sure, and the 90s were kind of believable, but the year 2010? No way man.

Guess I need a new year to see as being far off in Future World now. How’s 2050 sound?

Maybe I'll be driving my hover car on the moon by then.