Always Hungry - June 3

Best Wife and Pappy 12 are learning a lot about our appetites these days. We don't understand why so many foods we normally eat and enjoy at home are unappealing on the trail.  I could eat tuna every day at home but not here. 

Breakfast is always three packets of oatmeal with a couple ounces of cashews and some raisins. I'll usually down a honey bun or a snack bag of Oreos or famous Amos CC cookies before leaving camp. By 9:30 or 10 my first snack always is a combo of slim jims with a sharp cheddar cheese stick. That combo has always been tasty. Other snacks before lunch are Belvita breakfast bars, almonds, cheese its, granola bars, or more Jims and cheese. 

Lunch lately has been beef stick or polish sausage with sharp cheddar on bagel followed by PB and jelly on bagel. More of the same snacks after lunch plus beef jerky and sun chips. 

Dinners are usually instant mashed potatoes mixed with dehydrated crumbled sausage and peas. Sometimes I'll eat mac n cheese or a packaged rice side for dinner. After dinner is always another honey bun, cookies and/or more sun chips. The Sun Chips have never lost their appeal. 

Wish I could add more variety but not too many other foods are desirable. 

The last three nights we tented just off the trail not near a shelter. It just so happened that our mileage didn't match up with shelter locations. The two nights before that we had bad experiences in shelters on rainy nights. Both shelters were crowded and dirty. One of them had a bunch of mice in it that didn't bother us but did mess with others. A girl woke up to a mouse messing with her hair. A mouse also fell from a roof beam and landed on a guys face next to me. Tenting for us. 

When Best Wife leaves camp ahead of me I like the stick arrows she leaves behind to assure me she is on the right trail. 

Mountain Laurel is in full bloom and is all over the place. Rhododendron should be on strong in a week or so, maybe just as we are summiting Roan Mountain. 

There are plenty of firsts on the AT. Some of them quite unexpected. I was just leaving a shelter after lunch when four hikers pulled in. One took out a smoke but had no matches or lighter. None of his buddies had a light either. He asked if I had a lighter so I took my pack back off to get it. All my life at work I've seen guys light someone else's cigarette. It occurred to me that this could be the first time for me to light up a smoke. When I told him this Mormon had never done this before all four of them started getting into it and making a production out of it, hence the photo. 

































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