Cherry Gap Shelter (4-30-10)

This morning's breakfast was awesome. Uncle Johnny's shuttle brought about 10 of us hikers to this convenience store/sandwich shop half-way into town. It was a pretty odd setup: the inside looked like a gas station, but in the back there was a counter with a bunch of stools and a cash register. The menu was all biscuit-based: biscuit with sausage, biscuit with egg, etc. The lady at the counter was trying to warn us that one biscuit ought to be enough, but most people ordered two and finished with little issue. As opposed to yesterday, I ordered and ate jsut the right amt of food: the meal sweet-spot. And I washed it all down with OJ and whole milk - my first whole milk experience, I believe.

I left Uncle Johnny's just before noon and it was all uphill. The whole day, I was sweating. It told myself if I made it all the way to my target destination, I would reward myself with koolaid and a Jordan Jessie Go podcast - it worked.

From AT 2010

Something that I've been dreading doing for a while is check-in with work. I tried checking my work email while I was in Hot Springs, but had no luck getting in. I gave one of my colleagues, Matthew, a call late in the afternoon once I had gotten to a high enough spot to get cell reception. Apparently, the projects I had handed over to him during my trip were more-or-less running with no issue. This was exactly what I wanted to hear!

Late in the day, I heard an interesting bird song. During my hike, I've heard a number of different bird songs - some odd, some simple. Whenever I hear a new one, I try to whistle back to see if I can fool them - so far, no luck. But this bird call was cool: a blast of short, high-pitched notes, which I could not reproduce. It reminded me a lot of this mechanical bird-in-a-box that my grandma (Grandma Maggie) would play for us when I was a kid.

Alright, time to drift off into podcast-amazingness. The last weather report I heard called for thunderstorms for the next few days. I'm hoping that's wrong.