Thunder, Lighting and Tripping on the trail

Grandma's Room


Uncle Johnny’s Hostel to Fire road Campsite 14 Miles

We left Erwin after breakfast and climbed pretty fast. My swollen legs were giving me trouble and I imagined I was a bloated slug trying to climb the trail. It felt like slow going but then I looked at the GPS and it said my average was over 3 miles an hour and that was mostly up hill. Cyclone and Rolex took off up the hills as usual and I ended up playing catch-up.

I got in to the Curley Maple Gap Shelter about 2PM and Cyclone and Rolex were sitting there waiting for me. It turns out, I got in just in time because about five minutes after I dropped my pack, the thunder started thunderin’ and the lightning started a-flashin’ and shortly thereafter, the rain and the hail and the cats and the dogs were all fallin’ all over the place. Cyclone prognosticated the thunder with a comment like, “Is that thunder?” just as it went BOOM! And Rolex laughed uncontrollably until the hail started playin’ “This Old Man” on the tin roof. In the plastic bag where the hiker log is, Cubit left me a tube of Icy Hot and I applied some to the backs of my legs. I recommend you don’t do this in the rain. It just kept getting hotter and hotter! It felt good though, my legs have been cramping up or something. It feels like a cramp but also like a strained tendon on the back of my legs. It’s weird though, because it’s intermittent. Lots of rest and thick, juicy steaks seem to help it though. There were some potassium pills in the bag that someone had left behind and I put some of them in with my vitamins. This is a weird coincidence since I’ve never seen potassium pills before and I was just thinking yesterday that lack of Potassium might be part of my leg problem.

The rain eventually let up and we donned some wet weather gear and took off. Within 100 yards all of us had taken off our rain gear while we were walking. Removing your raingear while you are walking with a pack on is an art form that is unfairly overlooked in Modern Civilization. It requires a mélange of skills, combined with the severe consequence of failure; a delicate balance of daring and dexterity where death or disfigurement can come as quickly as it takes to tangle rain pants and Leki pole. This is not an endeavor for the faint of heart or the uncoordinated to be sure. I was having a rough time of it and finally stopped moving so I could stuff my jacket under my pack cover. Rain loomed and threatened all day but held off until we found a place to hole up for the night. It was just a small campsite off the side of the US Forest Service Road that was near a weak water source. We lit a fire and ate. The wind was strong and it rained a little; the fire stayed lit and we slept. Paraphrasing Billy S: “To sleep, perchance to heal…”

David AKA "Jukebox"


Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
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David's Website:
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Uncle Johnny's Hostel 4

Barbarossa Gongs at the All You Can Eat Chinese place

Monday, June 9, 2008
Uncle Johnny's Hostel 4

We got up and my feet are even more swollen. I can't figure it out. We went out to get Cyclone's tooth fixed at the dentist and I was definitely glad for another day's reprieve. I have to keep elevating my feet. I can't figure out why they are still swelling. I guess I'll just pack them in my boots tomorrow and start walking, we don’t have time to keep sitting at Uncle Johnny’s; not to mention, it’s costing us a ton of money to keep staying here. We keep going out to the buffets and Pizza Hut to eat. It costs a hell of a lot more to eat at places like that than it does to eat our trail provisions. It only costs us about $80 for four days of food for the three of us. We’ll have to stay on the trail just to stretch our budget out enough for us to survive financially! I hate being so budget-conscious but we really didn’t factor in the amount of money it was going to cost us to be out here. The websites say you can do it for about a dollar a mile but they must be talking about the people who never go off trail. It’s more like 2 or 3 dollars a mile. I thought we’d be getting more donations and that my company would be booking more gigs while I was away; but, Midnight Productions hasn’t been getting any future bookings and the donations have been slow. Staying at hostels and eating in cafes has been disastrous on our budget.

Around noon, we watched a wicked storm come up out of nowhere. We were riding the bikes when the wind came up and the sky got crazy dark. Lightning was blowin' up everywhere; it was sweet! We holed up in the Huddle House until the storm blew through and then all these cop cars started flyin' past. Later we learned that a church’s steeple got struck by lightning and there was a big accident on the interstate at the same time. Hell, I'll bet the newspaper will be twice as thick as normal tomorrow! Rolex rolled home on the bike while Cyclone and I went o go see the Kung-Fu Panda movie.

We got back to the hostel and read I “Catch 22”, elevated my feet, took vitamins and passed out. I think we're finally leaving Uncle Johnny's tomorrow. This “Catch 22” book is probably not the right book to be reading on the trail. You really have to concentrate on what’s going on because things don’t happen in chronological order. I like the book tremendously; but, it sure isn’t a casual read. I can identify with a lot of what is going on because of my time in the Marines. There is a lot of truth to the way it is written even though some of it is completely ridiculous. I’m sure it’s going to affect my dreams in ways I can’t even begin to imagine… I hope it helps with the swelling.

David AKA "Jukebox"


Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/brotherproof
David's Website:
http://www.davidpatrone.com

Uncle Johnny's Hostel 3

Ride To Dinner

Uncle Johnny's Hostel 3

I got up and my legs are killing me! Normally I feel stiff in the morning, but it goes away after I walk around for a little bit. Not today! I think it's been all of the bicycling on single-gear mountain bikes, stuck in either the highest gear or the lowest gear; or, slipping between two inappropriate gears every three or four strokes. If I ever get a chance to come back here, I’m bringing a bunch of tools and fixing all of his bikes! The backs of my legs are seizing up for no apparent reason and my ankles have turned into "cankles" which, for those of you who don't know, are the combination of a Calf and an Ankle. My ankles are very swollen and I generally feel like blah. I really didn’t feel like hiking out and I was getting worried when salvation came! Cyclone's tooth cracked and part of his filling came out! It looks like we need a dentist, so he's going to call one in Erwin tomorrow. I couldn't be more relieved that Cyclone's tooth was falling out.

I had picked up a copy of "Catch 22" from the library yesterday for 25 cents and I planned to read it but then Rolex finished his copy of "No Country For Old Men" so I sat around all day and read that book. I saw the movie when it came out and I’d have to say the book was better; especially how they explain that Moss is dead, oh sorry, I guess I just ruined it for ya :(). When I saw the movie I was wondering how it would go for the sequel but after reading the book, it’s pretty clear what's going to happen. Rolex has been reading this book for a while and he keeps asking me all these questions since I saw the move but I can’t remember all the details and it was getting annoying so now I read it and he’s not asking me any more questions.

I finished the book in one day and then started on Joseph Heller's "Catch 22." I've been meaning to read this book for a long, long time. I think I started it once but never finished it. If we keep staying at Uncle Johnny's I should be done by tomorrow. I took a bunch of Ibuprofen (Vitamin "I"), hoping to bring the swelling down and hopefully I'll get some sleep, I need to elevate my feet tonight to try to reduce some of the swelling. My ankles look like balloons. Sometime during the day just about everyone we know came in: Cubit, HaHa, Daniel (who may have just gotten the trail name Rasputin)and his sister Brittany, 3 others whose names escape me right now, the NC crew, and we met Hercules.

We moved into one of the cabins instead of the bunkhouse and it’s nice. It’s the place that Johnny’s Mom stays in when she’s here. It was comfortable and I’ll be bale to prop up my feet. Tomorrow, Cyclone should be getting his tooth fixed at the local dentist and then the next day we should be back on the trail. We’re losing a lot of ground by staying here so long but it’s probably a good thing for my legs as well. I can’t explain the pain that seizes up my legs at totally unpredictable times. I’ll be walking just fine and then all of a sudden BAM! They get like a cramp and it feels like my tendons are getting pulled behind my knee. Then, as soon as it hits, it’s gone and I’m limping gingerly, wondering if it will strike again. I wish I knew what was wrong. I’m thinking it’s a potassium deficiency or something like that. I looked it up on the Internet but I can’t find anything definitive; although, I have seen a bunch of other people’s complaints about the same condition. Maybe it will be gone in the morning…

David Patrone AKA "Jukebox"


Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/brotherproof
David's Website:
http://www.davidpatrone.com