Start Date & Vacuum Cleaners

Sunday, 15 April 2006
A week ago, my future hiking partner, Screaming Mimi, and I decided that our Start Date for our 2007 Thru Hike would be 18 March. It’s also a Sunday (though not an Easter, as is today) and we can attend Mass, go out to eat and then be chauffered to Springer Mountain parking lot on Forest Service Road 42 in Gilmer County (I think). The friends dropping us off include my mail-drop support, her husband and another good friend. My cousin will come over to the house where we’re staying to say her goodbyes.

And then our adventure begins. I’m reading an older Trail Journals (at the website with that name). I’m pre-living my hike. Some of the journalists write better than others or write in a style that I find easier to read than others. I hope that when I’m journaling, I can do the same.

One of the things I’ll be doing while hiking is working on a series of books. I’m developing characters right now and I already have some situations I’ll include. Each book of the three or five (depending on my outline) will explore a deeper side of one of the main characters. Or maybe two whose stories intertwine. I’ve already decided on my opening and closing for the series. The middle part won’t be that hard. Developing the characters on paper first will enable me to flesh them out in each novel. I’m looking forward to that aspect of my hike and my retirement.

Yesterday I learned that I may not be moving to Lower Alabama after all. I may be moving to Piedmont, Alabama. My daughter and family may be moving there and I will be moving there, too. No need to move to Gulf Shores if the family is not there.

It’s taken me a day to make the paradigm shift from beach to mountains, but I’m okay with it now. My health plan has more doctors and hospitals to choose from up in the Piedmont area.

While cleaning a few days ago, my very old Hoover started smoking. I cut it off and removed some litter from around the band that runs the brush. Today I used it again. After replacing the bag. Well, the rubber that holds the bag had disintegrated and the band I used didn’t hold tight. And I had more white smoke. I stopped the vacuum, saw the mess where the bag should have been, got fine dirt all over myself since there was no bag to contain it. But the white smoke made me decide it’s time to toss the vacuum. I’ll take it to the transfer station one day this week. They’ll charge me fifty cents to take it off my hands. So now all I have is an old old Electrolux vacuum cleaner that my parents had demoted to basement duty but I claimed when they were moving into their retirement community. I think it will work for the few months I’ll be here. It just won’t get the dirt up as well from the carpeting. I can always use a broom and sweep first and then vacuum.

If I end up in a bungalow in Piedmont, I’m hoping my son-in-law will lay tile instead of carpet. Sweeping and wet-moping beat vacuuming any day of the week.

A year from today I will be on the Appalachian Trail somewhere north of the Smoky Mountains. I can hardly wait.