Tonight our weekly tour around the web to bring you the kind of positive news you can’t find in the normal news outlets, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Child saves another child with help from Sponge Bob!
Meet a cow who thinks he’s a big dog
Police officer leaps in to save mother and children!
Home Depot has remodeled 22,000 Vets Homes
So as I’ve mentioned before I am taking a few months to work on a book about my Appalachian Trail experience this Summer. So in order to accomplish this I needed a place to hang out and write. I had a few criteria: first, that it would be warm during the winter; second, that it was near the ocean; and third, that it would be interesting but not too interesting as I do want to get the book done. This third criteria ruled out my first choice, New Orleans, I was afraid that I’d get too distracted in my favorite city.
When I mentioned these criteria on the trail this Summer, one of my hiking partners, Second Star had suggested Pensacola, Florida. I’m happy to say that it was a great suggestion and that I have indeed landed a new temporary home in Pensacola. The town fits my criteria and I’ve found a small place as my base of operations.
A new town, where you know almost no one is a bit daunting. You consider things like your car breaking down, or being in the hospital and having no one who can come to your aid or help you out. You get lost a bit, I’ve been lost three times in my first few days here. You get lonely, even though, as the loner I am, back in California I would have likely spent this same time alone. One of the things that concerns me a bit is the possibility of falling back into the well and getting a bit depressed. However after today I’m much less concerned about that.
Pensacola is a fun town, I’ve found all of the essentials and it seems every weekend there is a festival in town. Today, there was a huge art festival and next week an Italian festival. I’m looking forward to my first trip to the national seashore and a road trip to Mobile, AL. I met some cool local people today and I do have an old mentor in town who I’ll connect with soon and a high school friend not too far down the road.
Even more so today, after an afternoon nap, the writing juices starting flowing. I really was in a mood to write this afternoon and this and another post were the result. So I will be taking all of my own advice from this blog and will be working on being positive and moving forward, accepting my new changes. My writing will be my focus for the next three months, hopefully a productive three months and lots of happy days my friends ~ Rev Kane
The theme this year was intergalactic freak
For those who are not aware, Fantasy Fest is the annual Halloween Celebration in Key West, FL. In reality it is half Halloween celebration, half Mardis Gras. It’s a very accepting and permissive place and festival and the costumes can be a bit interesting. On that front if you are easily offended by nudity, sexuality or frightening images you might want to skip the rest of this post.
I first attended Fantasy Fest about 10 years ago, it was a blast. This year I was invited back to celebrate my friend’s 50th birthday in Key West which included Fantasy Fest.
I love Key West, a lovely tropical island, hot, muggy, beautiful water and a very relaxed pace makes it a great place to relax and enjoy life. Fantasy Fest makes things a bit more interesting but sadly the festival seems to be moving further away from the arts and more towards a Bourbon Street atmosphere. It does however lead to some fabulous photos.
A plate of medium wings at The Anchor Bar.
I don’t mind hot and spicy. Actually find that appealing in a girl. And chicken wings ~ Julie James
So recently I noticed a two-part article in USA Today about Buffalo Chicken Wings, their origin and then a ranking of the best wings in Buffalo (Part 1, Part 2). And in case Jessica Simpson is reading this, they are made out of chicken darlin, buffalo don’t have wings. Given I was heading out to Canton, OH and then to Pittsburgh, I decided to make a stop into Buffalo for the night and hit the Anchor Bar (the origin place) and Duff’s (the place they said was best).
There are a couple of origin stories but the one thing everyone agrees on is that the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY absolutely made chicken wings famous. I do find it amusing that Frank’s Red Hot sauce works its way into every story and for the record I do like the taste of it.
I visited the Anchor Bar last week, I hadn’t been there in 33 years. You see I started my academic career in Rochester, about an hour east of Buffalo, and of course as a college student when wings were very popular, and being so close, we had to make the pilgrimage. Returning 33 years later I was pleasantly surprised to find not a lot had changed at the Anchor Bar in that time. Sure, it’s got a gift shop now and it’s a lot more well-known, but otherwise and the next photo will show you, things are still pretty much the same as they have been for a very long time.
Happily the other thing that hasn’t changed are the wings. I got an order of medium wings and they were excellent, flavorful with a little bit of kick. I really enjoyed the wings and my little trip down memory lane.
The second place I went to was the place USA Today said had the best wings in the city, Duff’s.
Duff’s is a more modern chain restaurant with several locations around the city. There were some interesting things I found immediately interesting, one was the chain restaurant feel. The second was that apparently the hiring policy for waitresses was that they be young, fit and attractive. I did a split order of mild and medium light as there are signs and notes on the menu that their wings are hot! They were not lying even a little bit, unfortunately it seems the way they make mild is by putting a couple of dabs of sauce on the bottom of the dish. The medium light were much better, good flavor and they carried a really nice kick. I seriously cannot conceive of ordering their hot wings, or the pain involved in eating their top-level, atomic, I think they were called. But if you are a spicy, hot food junky I think this would be the place to test yourself. Luckily, there were plenty of options to wash down the spice.
One last thing about Duff’s, I was in there at the bar during the Bills game. Definitely a fun place to be when the Bills are winning and when they score they pour free shots, it was definitely a fun atmosphere.
I have to say I liked the wing at the Anchor Bar better, more flavor a nice kick but nothing overtly trying to test my manhood. The wings at Duff’s were good, definitely a place worth eating at and especially if you like your wings HOT!
All in all it was a great little food pilgrimage and a very happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
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The other night I posted the first part of this blog, Appalachian Trail Happiness: Precious Moments – Part 1
Last night I posted the second part, Appalachian Trail Happiness: Precious Moments – Part 2
One day in the Shenandoah National Park the trail winds out into a park. I was excited about getting there mostly because AWOL’s guide mentioned that the park had bathrooms with running water. When you’re on the trail small luxuries can make you really happy and the prospect of being able to take a sink shower and get water I didn’t have to treat had me in a good mood. As I emerged into the park I ran into two really cool section hikers I’d hung out with a bit at the shelter the night before, it didn’t hurt at all that they are both really pretty.
Two adorable section hikers I met in the Shenandoah
The girls were laying on the grass next to a picnic table and I asked to join them and I laid down on the bench of the picnic table. It was one of those blue sky, puffy white cloud days where you can see patterns in the cloud and so I laid there and did just that. The girls left and Second Star also came and went and I laid on that table for about an hour. It was the most pleasurable hour I’ve spent in some time. It hit me while laying there that it had been decades since I’d done this and I really wondered why? This is the beauty of hiking the AT, you get time to stop and just enjoy nature, to just be. When we were kids we understood the importance of this, as adults we get too busy, too distracted we have forgotten the beauty and importance of slowing down and just being. This moment had a profound impact on me and since then I’ve been slowing down and taking more time to simply be, not enough, but I’m getting better at it.
On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind. ~ Dan Lipinski
Me and Mao at a shelter in the SNP
On the trail I met a hiker called Mao, (I never know if I’m spelling that correctly), and he was a great guy. He’s a combat veteran and a Marine, we talked about my grandfathers and their service in World War II. We also talked about the cause he was hiking for, to raise awareness about suicide among our veterans. I wrote an earlier piece about this and how you can help our veterans. Mao knew my knee was hurting me and a couple of days later he would end up coming out of camp behind me. He’s a much faster hiker than I am but after he passed me on the trail I noticed he was pretty consistently about 100 yards ahead of me. It hit me that he was hanging back and looking out for me. I pushed to catch up to him and asked him what he was doing? He simply said, “your hurt and hiking in the rain, I can’t leave a man behind.” It was a simple act of kindness and magnificent example of how we look out for each other on the trail. I thanked him and reminded him I was my grandfather’s son, my grandpa Kane got in a street fight when he was 87, he smiled and said ok and quickly moved off down the trail. I would be luck enough to run into him again much later on the trail and I’m so happy to say he completed his thru-hike recently summiting Katahdin.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. ~ Frederick Douglass
One of the great things I got to do while slack packing in Massachusetts was to take my nephew out for a hike with me. I miscalculated the mileage and it turned out to be about half as long as I had intended but it was great to be out there hiking with him. He did great and the hike reminded me of the first time we ever did something alone together. When he was about three years-old I accompanied him and his family to Walt Disney World in Florida. At the end of the day he wanted to go swimming at the hotel and no one else was ready. Being an impatient three year-old he already had his suit on and was ready to go. So to avoid the drama I agreed to take him and quickly through on my suit. It was a big moment, I’m not sure at that point he’d ever gone anywhere without his parents before. He held my hand tightly as we walked down the hall and into the elevator. As we approached the pool he kept looking back at the hotel. We got to the pool and got his life jacket on and he balked, first wanting to wait, then asking incessantly and finally wanting to go back to the hotel. Of course half way back the rest of the family arrived and we went back to the pool. That day on the trail brought back that memory and made me smile.
My nephew at the Shay’s Rebellion Monument
Getting fierce next to his first white blaze
Rev Kane and his nephew on the AT in MA.
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. ~ Helen Keller
The real test for my rehabbed knee was to go out on the trail again with a full pack. My friend Bryan had also wanted to hike on the trail with me so I happily got to combine the two and we decided to do a week long hike from Bennington, VT down to Lee, MA. The hike worked out well, my knee did fine. There were two really precious things about the week. We were heading southbound so we were passing thru-hikers I had started with and I got to see some old friends including the three hikers I rode in with to Amicalola State Park.
Reuniting in VT with hikers I met on the first day.
The boys arriving at Amicalola
The other thing was the chance to spend a week with one of my best friends. This was the kind of time we hadn’t had together since college almost thirty years ago.
Pausing in front of a pretty stream on our last day!
Being out there with a close friend, introducing him to the trail was incredibly special and the type of thing that makes the trail so special. It was an amazing week full of very happy days my friends ~ Rev Kane
RELATED ARTICLES YOU MIGHT ENJOY
Appalachian Trail Happiness: A Walk in the Woods
Appalachian Trail Happiness: Precious Moments – Part 1
You and I will meet again, When we’re least expecting it, One day in some far off place, I will recognize your face, I won’t say goodbye my friend, For you and I will meet again. ~ Tom Petty
Hiking the Appalachian Trail is an amazing thing, primarily because of the hiking community that you encounter. I encounter the same sort of thing at the Burning Man Festival that I have attended a number of times and have written a piece on the similarities between Burning Man & The Appalachian Trail.
Rev Kane in his first year at Burning Man
Like being on the trail, at Burning Man you meet an incredible group of people. People who are kinder than the folks you normally encounter, giving, open and people of a similar mindset to you in many ways. The normal stresses of life are put on hold and you get to relax in a way you never get to in your day to day, default life. One of the things that you notice at Burning Man is that after the week is over, once people hit the tarmac, they start to revert to the same behaviors they normally exhibit off the playa and it begins to bum you out. Then, once you get back to the default world, you quickly remember why your time at Burning Man, or on the trail was so special. You quickly get disillusioned with society and the people you encounter. You long for the community you left behind and it leads to in the case of Burning Man, to what I call Post Playa Depression and the link will lead you to a piece I wrote on this years ago called Burning Man Disconnection.
Now that you’re off the trail you’ll feel some of these same feelings, we miss our trail family. Life is now much more complex and not nearly as satisfying as life on the trail. Being on the trail we had clear, defined and simple goals – hike to that point from this point. We feel bummed out by all of these things, so what do we do?
Brassie Brook Shelter
The very first thing I would say is be careful with any big decisions you have decided to make. If it’s something you’ve been thinking about for months on the trail you’re probably ok. But if it’s a sudden decision your making, one you haven’t been considering on the trail, be careful my friends, take your time before acting and make sure it’s a good decision and not one born out of your longing for the connections you’re feeling distant from.
Stay connected, your trail family is still out there and they’re feeling the same way you are so reach out. Give them a call, drop them a note, plan a hike somewhere with one or all of them. Write about your experiences, in a book, a blog, or even just in your own journal. Remind yourself of all of the positive things you have just experienced. Then, start planning your next adventure, you’ve just done something completely out of the box and utterly amazing, what’s next for you, the possibilities are endless.
The original AARP group after their climb out of the NOC
Stay in shape, don’t underestimate the positive impacts of the daily exercise regime you’ve been implementing for the last few months. Sure, you aren’t going to replicate walking eight plus hours a day with weight on your back, but you can stay active, walking, biking, running or the gym. Keep exercising daily, exercise will not only keep you fit and keep off post trail weight, but regular exercise has an impact on your mood. Likewise, get off your trail diet and back to eating less and more balanced.
Beaver Pond on the trail
Finally, stay happy, do the basic things we know help make people happier. Exercise, express gratitude, get enough sleep, smile, be altruistic and tell people about what you just did. People love hearing about the trail, they love to live vicariously through our experiences, it will make you feel good and get you more than a couple of free drinks.
Also, feel free to reach out to the hiking community, that includes me, find someone to talk to if you are feeling down and I mean this my friends. If you need to talk, I’m here and so are your fellow brothers and sisters from the hiking community. We were there for each other on the trail and we can be here for each other off the trail and make sure that we’ll all continue to have happy days my friends ~ Rev Kane
I’ve learned that fear limits you and your vision. It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for you. The journey is valuable, but believing in your talents, your abilities, and your self-worth can empower you to walk down an even brighter path. Transforming fear into freedom – how great is that? ~ Soledad O’Brien
So my Appalachian Trail adventure has all but ended, just a day hike left to do in NJ and then I will have hiked in all 14 states on the AT, climbed 9 out of 14 of each state’s highest peaks including the highest peak on the trail. Not bad for a 50 year old fat man who has turned 51 since starting this adventure.
Rev Kane on his arrival at Amicalola Falls State Park
My last hiking partner was a really amazing person, Chai, Spider Chai – in my best British accent. She was a young hiker from Scotland who turned me on to Time Lord Rock, provided me with great conversation every night and even played me to sleep one night with her ukulele. She was an absolute perfect final hiking partner and a damn fine human.
Rev Kane & Spider Chai
We hiked together for about a week and then we hit Pine Grove Furnace State Park one morning and the wonderful grill/store there. I had passed my personal 1000 mile mark on the way into the park and celebrated with a huge breakfast, then another, the day started to warm up and Spider remarked she didn’t feel like walking anymore. I seconded that thought and took it a step further, I decided to pull the plug. I had planned on doing NY/NJ but the weather forecast was calling for heat and quite frankly, mentally I was done. So we got a campsite for the night, got showers and then rained on like hell for most of the night. I started in the rain and ended in the rain, a perfect circle.
Dawn at 5000 feet
I really love the quote I used tonight it really hits the point of why I and why a lot of people attempt a thru-hike. The big thing is that doing something like this makes you do a lot. You change your life in order to make space for the attempt and the time, you challenge yourself in a hundred ways, and the space you find in your head while on the trail can do amazing things for you. You get all of this whether you do one day, a month or the whole trail and I admire the hell out of anyone who attempts a thru-hike.
No matter what, quitting a thru-hike attempt on the AT brings a huge range of emotions. Relief, embarrassment, depression and pride. It’s a relief to know you will no longer being doing something incredibly hard, embarrassment that you failed the attempt, your mood tanks as you will no longer be on the trail and no longer be in as close contact with your trail family. Finally pride in your accomplishment, after you fight through the initial emotions. I wrote a piece early on about Quitting the Appalachian Trail, it’s still a good read and should provide some appropriate perspective.
Rev Kane with some of his trail family
To understand the level of disconnect when leaving the trail, you have to understand how hiking partners are so much more than that, they become selected family and many of us refer to each other as trail or hiker family. My piece on Trail Community, should give you a better feel for what I’m talking about.
The AARP gang with our host Lumpy on the left at Standing Bear
So my goals in starting this adventure were as follows: make it through the first day; go at least 100 miles; cross at least one state line; complete 500 miles; do more miles than Bill Bryson did; get enough material to write a book about the adventure; do 1000, 1500, 2000 miles; and finally complete a thru-hike. So except for the mileage above 1000 miles I hit my goals. My most important goal was to get enough material for a book, I certainly did, hell I had enough a month into the trip, to be really honest I had enough after talking to some of my new family for the first time. The book will feature some of the blog posts I’ve written, definitions of terms and slang from the trail defined via story, and finally fleshed out entries from my journal. I’ve started working on it already and hope to have it completed by early spring.
Rev Kane on Rocky Top
So what’s next for me? Well as someone once said, “I’m a sampler of life.” My next samples will be photographing polar bears in Churchill, Canada on the shore of Hudson Bay. Hopefully swimming with a whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium and then moving to Pensacola for a few months to write where I hope to put out a book on the AT, another I’ve been working on and three poetry chap books, stay tuned.
I’m still processing the whole AT experience but in one word it was amazing. I met incredible people, stretched and tested myself, worked out a lot in my head. This whole summer was amazing, even the time I was off-trail rehabbing my knee was a blast. I visited old friends, explored some new places and really have just enjoyed my time away from the workforce. More posts to come in the next couple of weeks about the trail and my thoughts about it all, all in all lots of happy days my friends ~ Rev Kane
If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it. ~ Herodotus
After coming off of the trail and jumping right back into the semi-normal, non-working life of wrangling and cleaning gear, planning, working out at the gym and once again couch surfing. I decided I needed a few days of pure relaxation. I wanted a beach, a chair, a good book but the process of finding the right place at the right price was much more difficult than I expected. Then, by accident while looking at places to stay in the Adirondacks I hit upon Lake Placid.
As most of you know, Lake Placid was the site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics, the 1980 being famous for the Miracle on Ice, where the US beat the Russians and went on to win the gold medal in hockey. I hadn’t been to Lake Placid in almost 30 years but it seemed to be the perfect mix of a small, quiet town, lots of places to eat and a bit of an escape from the last throws of the Summer’s heat.
Throw in the opportunity to have dinner with some good friends, and lots of time to read, write and stare at the lake from the balcony of my hotel room and it turned out to be just perfect.
We all need to take some time to just slow down or even stop. I know a lot of you are agreeing and rolling your eyes at me because of jobs, kids, and all of the responsibilities we are constantly buried under. Well let me roll my eyes right back at you, it’s because of exactly all of those things we all need time to just stop for a bit. So, yes, it may be difficult but find a way my friends because I want you all to live a long life with lots of happy days ~ Rev Kane
Happiness and the Benefits of Gratitude
The green tunnel in PA
As I stated in Appalachian Trail Happiness: Pennsylvania – Part 1, I really liked southern PA. The trails in Southern Pennsylvania were great, a few rock runs but nothing worse than most of the terrain up to that point on the AT. The trail was very different however in another sense. Except for the occasional SOBO thru-hiker and section hiker, the trail was full of mostly weekenders, day hikers and school groups.
I actually enjoyed the school groups, particularly one from Gettysburg College that I camped with for a couple of nights. It was fun to talk with college freshman, something I spent a lot of time doing in my former job. However, the lack of thru-hikers changes things, thru-hikers are a different breed, a breed I feel a part of, even if my knees won’t allow me all 2200 miles this year.
I also seemed to be attracting cute little critters on the PA leg.
Also a reminder on this leg that the real danger in the woods is often the little things, not the big things. This nest was about 3 feet off the trail at one of the shelters.
As I rolled through PA, you also encounter all of the midpoints, the original, the permanent and of course the current:
Finally, me and my last hiking partner rolled into Pine Grove Furnace State Park, home of the half gallon ice cream challenge. The store/grill is awesome and the owners are super hiker friendly. It was nice to walk into someplace and see an owner who was more excited about hiker customers than the general public. My stomach has begun to increasingly not handle large quantities of dairy well, so the half gallon turned into the ice cream bar challenge and a very happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time. ~ Hermann Hesse
Amongst AT hikers Pennsylvania gets a really bad reputation, it gets called Rocksylvania, or Rattle Snakeylvania and in Northern Pennsylvania these criticisms may very well be legitimate. However, Southern Pennsylvania is a whole different story. Particularly the section from the southern border up to Pine Grove Furnace State Park.
The section is great for a number of reasons, the first is the trail itself and everything around it, the second is the quality of the shelters. I’ll address the first in another post but in this post I want to address some of the best shelters I visited on the trail.
With the exception of Antietam Shelter, the shelters in southern PA were really nice. These were newer shelters, not necessarily large, but well built, beautiful floors and they all had great camping and hammocking spaces. They also had one other very important thing in common, they had overseers who frequently visited the shelters and made sure they were being taken care of. Here are some images of a couple of the shelters including one of my favorite ideas, the snoring and non-snoring shelters.
My first Ent on the trail
Of course the cream of the crop is Quarry Gap Shelter and innkeeper (overseer) Jim Stauch who takes amazing care of the shelter. The shelter has hanging plants, a bench, a covered eating area, permanent tarps to block the wind and even a sun dial.
All in all, at least for southern PA, we need to be kinder in describing the state on the trail, it provided for several happy days my friends ~ Rev Kane
The Ministry of Happiness 