A long layoff ends, as we head back to the trail

Our brief Labor Day vacation has come to a close, and now it's time to get back to walking south. Blake was able to get a ride back to Harpers Ferry yesterday from his Uncle, while I was left to wait for the trains to start running again after their day off yesterday. My train departs from Union Station in DC at 3:55pm, landing in Harpers Ferry around 5:15pm. From there I'll hike into the nite until I catch up to the rest of the JHP. I had a great time this weekend, a hug thank you to Kate O'Donnell for opening her sweet DC pad to Blake and myself. Another thank you to Kate for bringing me home for the weekend, my family and friends were all shocked that I was home and happy that I was able to get back home once more before I get to Springer.

On another cool note, I was able to make email contact with a thru hiker we met last summer on our section hike, Pop Tart. He was excited to hear from us and impressed that we were really doing our own thru hike. He said, rather modestly, that he feels some what respocible for our hike because of the influence he had on us during our seciton hike.

Another honorable mention goes to Andrew Skurka, whom I was also able to make contact with via email. He was he young man from Duke that hiked the AT in 2002, we followed his hike online on his website and saw the evolution of this young man into Backpacker Magazines Man of the Year after completing his Sea-2-Sea hike. He completed this 7,000+ mile trek in under a year. He sent his well wishes as we embark on the secong half of our trip.