What happened at the K-mart, and other adventures

Greetings, everyone! Contrary to some of your inquiries, I am not dead, kidnapped, in a bear’s stomach, or a member of a backwoods commune; however, I appreciate the concern. Neither am I in jail, although for a few moments while I was blood spattered in an out-of-service women’s restroom in K-mart, I feared the worst. More on that in a minute.

Sorry for my 500 mile silence. I’ll have to resort to bullet points for an overview. But yes, I’m now 1042 miles in, only days away from the halfway mark. You may wonder what hikers do when not walking. Here is a smattering of my side adventures; regard it like you would the sample platter at a greasy restaurant–some items sound good, others make you curious, and still others repulse you, but to us thru-hikers, it’s all delicious and we eagerly polish our beards:

• Blueberry picking at the “Cookie Lady” residence
• Working for stay at Moon in the Pond Farm
• Roadside hotdog stand
• Canoeing at Upper Goose Pond
• Bellvale Creamery ice cream break
• Startling some naughty teenagers in a park (they thought I was homeless, but I was legally staying at the pavilion)
• Killing, cleaning, and eating rattlesnake
• Hitch hiking 30 miles to tour America’s oldest brewery
• Making friends with our 4-star waitress at Cracker Barrel (heaven for hikers, by the way)

Truly these side adventures make the hike for me. To clarify, I still enjoy the hiking and the nights outside more than being in town, but I also need to have stories to tell, to stumble upon something unexpected like the nudists in VT or the rattlesnake in PA, to understand the broad experience of “trail life”  in addition to the finer details I absorb while walking. A veteran hiker once told me halfway is the hardest part; you feel equally astonished at how much trail you have left to hike as you do about how much you’ve already accomplished. Any side adventure that injects some diversity into my mental game is welcome. The small victories are how we make it, not by a constant drive to say I’ve completed the whole footpath.

I’ve been recalling two quotes recently, both of which I received in letters. From Albert Camus, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” I won’t elaborate on my developing notion of absolute freedom, but out here, it is something worth thinking about–and experiencing.
Second, from Thomas Merton, “The poet enters into himself in order to create. The contemplative enters into God in order to be created.” Living out here for so long feels like entering into God, and may be. It feels large, sustained, disorienting, clarifying, humbling, confidence instilling, untamed. Certainly I am being created.

Three of my favorite side adventures from the list were blueberry picking, the farm, and the rattlesnake. Blueberry picking has always been integral to my summers, so it was a nice surprise and relief to eat myself sick and stain my fingers on the Cookie Lady’s plump “bluebs.” I carried a bag full of them to Upper Goose Pond where the caretaker put them in pancakes for breakfast. Right on.

Sticking with the theme of food, I made an unexpected stop on an organic farm when the guy (Dom) who picked me up while hitching talked me into coming to his farm. His persuasion point? Good food. He told no lies. Drinking chilled raw milk from the cows, eating chili made with beef from his cattle, and munching on sour kraut that he taught me to make… all worth it.

Finally, the rattlesnake needs explaining, and photographic evidence. PA has been so rocky that I expected to see a snake around every turn, but since you can’t stay alert and on edge all the time, I slipped back into the hiking trance. So when Daniel and I encountered a 5-foot rattler, he jumped back so fast I ran into him. He yelled “Aaah.” I said, “Oo, rattlesnake!” We had previously set a goal of eating one, given the proper chance, and this was it. Eventually pinning it with a trekking pole, we beheaded it and put the body in a ziplock bag for the 7 miles left into town. We then hitch hiked–requesting that the driver roll the window down because “we smelled.” No we didn’t tell them about the snake; we are decent people. They dropped us off at Kmart, where we spotted an out-of-order Lady’s room. Perfect. After cleaning, skinning, and pulling out a section of meat, we scrubbed down the counter and left. Only after we had blood on the counter, though, did I reconsider whether this was a good idea or not. Can you be arrested for making a bathroom unsanitary? Will we be in the newspaper and give hikers bad names? We worked quickly. That night, we cooked it with olive oil, paprika, and a seasoning salt. No, it doesn’t taste like chicken–more like calamari, but not bad.

Now for photos:

After the kill

This is me trying to look tough

sizzle

Mmm. Tastes like proof.

How about a cuppa moo?

I learned how to run behind a tractor and stack hay

Bottling at the Yuengling Brewery

Just before a lightning storm in PA

Me next to a real backpacker

Keep trekking, good luck to all who are starting back at school, and even more luck to those who aren’t!

-MKS

PS- snakes still violently jerk even 2 hours after being decapitated. We learned this when we jumped back at the Kmart, triggering the electric hand dryer. Also, my next address will be coming soon, I hope.

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