I can't say enough good things about my friend Andrew. He is the funniest person I have ever known. He's always upbeat and has the cleverist of wit. He's also never met a stranger. Especially after he's had a couple of drinks. He's truly one of the best people I have ever met. We had the pleasure of traveling through Scotland and England together a few years back for three weeks. One of my favorite trips of all time. And I have been on many trips.

Anyhoo, Andrew was sitting outside a general store there in the hamlet of Suches parusing a topo map of the hike ahead. He'd been patiently waiting for a couple of hours and greeted me with his usual hearty handshake and slap on the back. We chatted for a few minutes, more correctly, I appologized profusely for my tardiness, then I introduced Andrew to Oatmeal and we all headed out for the Springer Mountain parking lot.

Day Three (I am counting my total days so this includes the two I hiked earlier with Claire)

The morning didn't look good and it didn't get better. Everything was grey. A heavy fog was hanging in the air like one of Oaties farts after she eats too many rawhide bones. This was as good as it was going to get too.

Andrew and I hiked the mile or so up to the top of Springer Mountain. I had already covered this ground with Claire but I wanted Andrew to have the sense of having started at the beginning so off we went to "touch the rock."

Andrew was rather proud of his trail attire. A pair of white Reebock lowtop sneakers with ankle braces underneath, a pair of overly tight blue jeans and a plaid short sleeve sport shirt. He looked more ready for a busy day of shopping for pocket protectors or picking out tile grout colors than hiking the grandaddy of all footpaths. Still that is just one of the many facets of Andrew that makes him a delight to children of all ages.

When we got back to the truck and began loading our packs for the hike I went through my usual angst. Take this? Thake that? Do I need this? Is this worth the weight? Camera? Video camera? tripod? blah blah blah You'd think after doing this for 15 years I'd know what I was doing by now. Still, everytime I hit the trail it's as if I have never been in the woods before.

My big debate this time was over my tripod. I wasn't sure if I wanted to bother with the wieght of it. Originally I set out without it but a quarter of a mile down the trail I decided it was too important that I punish myself with as much wieght as possible so I ran back and got it.

Andrew and I slogged along, sometimes he was ahead, sometimes I. Always Oatie ran a relay race between us making sure no one was left behind. She's such a good dog. I really loved having her hike with me but dreaded having to see her crestfallen little face when we got to the end and she realizes she has to get back into the car.

About 4:00 we came to a shelter. It was early but the shelter ws filling up fast. People were picking out their spots and getting very protective of their space. Some of the purists sneered back and forth between Oatmeal and I as if to say canines were personna non grata at the shelter. That was fine with us. We didn't need them anyway.

The next shelter was 8 miles away. For some reason I have never been able to fathom Andrew was convinced we could make it there that night. We had one of these conversation I have with Andrew every so often where we talk for sometimes ten or fifteen minutes and I have no idea whether he's meant a single word of anything he's said. They go like this..

Andrew: Eight miles, let's go for it.
Derrick: Are you serious?
Andrew: Yeah, why not?
Derrick: Eight trail miles. These aren't your church pic-nic, highway driving, Lincoln Continental miles. These are AT miles. Hard miles.
Andrew: I know but what's an average days hiking? About 20 miles?
Derrick: Closer to ten.
Andrew: We can do it
Derrick: It's almost 4:00. We only have a couple hours of light left.
Andrew: Nah,won't be dark until like 9:00.
Derrick: Dude, it's early March. It gets dark at 6:00.
Andrew: Nah man, no way.
Derrick: OK then, Hike on...
Andrew (keeping tone but completely reversing position) : Well no, what do you want to do?
Derrick: I wanna sleep in this shelter we're standing in front of where it's dry and I can stand up to change my sopping wet clothes, eat dinner at a table and stay dry all night when it's pissing down rain.
Andrew: You don't wanna do that.
Derrick: Ah but don't I?
Andrew: Nah, you don't want to.
Derrick: Screw it let's go.
Andrew: Well what if we (Insert any perposterous offer here)
Derrick (suddenly mounts a counteroffensive off of the sarcastic flank): mmmkay, just let me shoot over to that Dairy Queen over there for flurry and I'll be right with you.
Andrew: No seriously.
Derrick: I like the oreo one's the best.
Andrew: Or we could just stay here (coughs the word "wimp")
Derrick: Ooooh there's a Starbucks (begins walking away) I like the caramel frappacinnos too. MMMMM But some hot coffee would be good too. Or some tea and scrumpets.

And off we hiked into the pouring rain. I hiked ahead fast. Not really mad that we were moving on, just not looking forward to being hunched in a tent all night with a wet dog and the world's loudest snoring mammal.

Luckily though the rain let up, it didn't clear at all but the simple fact nothing was falling from the sky was great. We hiked on a couple more hours. Up to the top of Sassafrass mountain and decided to make camp. It was a rather idillic campsite. We sat on top of the ridge but in a bit of a saddle between two peaks. There was no wind at all. We made a fire and began to dry out. I had some dehydrated chili-mac for dinner and I was dying to get into it. If you have never spent time in the woods you might not understand the primal ravenous feeling you can get after a day of fresh air and hill walking. It's an all consuming calorie lust beyond dieting or simply skipping a meal. You can almost feel the individual cells in your body beckoning for nurishment. It's an amazing hunger.

My hunger this time was equalled by cold. Everything I had on was saturated with rain and sweat and the temperature was dropping fast. In the time it took me to set up the tent I began to shiver rather intensely and seriously needed to get dry. Once the tent was up I stripped down completely and redressed in dry clothes and some fleece. I felt considerable better and set about heating up some water for dinner. Andrew meanwhile got a fire going with a little help from some Coleman fuel tablets.

We ate with shoveling gulps and both saved a little for Oatie so that she could have something hot too. She was amusing herself running around the campsite sniffing and occasionally rooting a bug or two out their holes. Once her belly was full though she hit the tent and slept like a demon. At one point I tried to wake her up but she would have no part of it.

Andrew and I amused ourselves in caveman fashion for the rest of the evening. We lounged by the fire heating up wet garments until the steamed then letting them cool off again. We kept a running fart contest going and talked about whatever came to mind.

When it came time to go to bed I was quite relieved to get in my bag and be warm and dry. I was a little worried about Oatmeal though. She was soaking wet and shivering profusely but still seemed to be sleeping contentedly. I pulled her off of Andrew's sleeping bag and wrapped her up with me until she would get warm. It didn't take her long until she was sliding out there because she was too hot. She took up a post at the end of my feet and slept solidly the rest of the night. I, on the other hand, was lying next to unholy satanic Snorelord of the Netherlings. Andrew Killian could vibrate stink off skunk with nothing more than his half congested sinuses. I tossed and turned all night never getting more than an hours straight sleep. It was misery to be so tired and not able to sleep. In the morning I noticed Andrew had brought himself earplugs. Earplugs people. He was wearing earplugs to keep from waking himself up. Unbelievable.And more importantly. Where were my earplugs?

So anyway, the next day lead off with some oatmeal (the food) and the usual packing and shoving and nothing fitting as well as it did the day before. I guess as far as hiking days go it was pretty average. A little rain, a little not. Every now and then we'd see someone hiking in the other direction and they'd tell us how far we had to go. Occasionally we would be passed by faster hikers who had stayed in the shelter the night before. They told these great stories about all the fun they had and how there was this one guy there from Wisconsin who was supposedly going to through hike the whole trail but he didn't know how to work his stove and the only food he had he had bought at a gas station in Gainesville on his way to the trailhead. I sure wish I had been there to see that.

So we got back to Andrews car and began the arduous journey back to the trailhead to pickup my truck. I'll spare you the details here 'cause it wasn't a pretty trip with some stinky honkies and vomitting dog in the car. Sufficive to say we made it home alive.