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9/11/2013


Home

Got home to Minnesota, about midnight last night, September 10th.....a day early.  After racing from Millinocket, ME, to Boston by bus, we discovered that hotels are very expensive near the airport. Duh?  Our tickets were for a flight in the morning.  But the need to get home had been turned loose, anyway.  My brother, "Wildman", and I, both just wanted to be home again....Right Now!!!  So we bought new airline tickets......wasting the others.  Once our paths turned homeward, as I said.....nothing else mattered.  We were going home right now.

We were the last two on the plane and seated in the very rear seats.  The other passengers had been waiting on us.  We were last because of our scramble to book a new flight to MPLS/ST. Paul  and because "Wildman" forgot that he had a folding knife in his pocket.  I chatted non stop, in panic mode, with a TSA Agent,  while "Wildman" was taken away by two TSA Agents.  I did not know about the knife, but I knew we were in trouble.  "Wildman" was gone twenty minutes, while they helped him pack up and mail the knife home.   This flight toward home being only my second, in a long, long time, as I explained at the start of this adventure,  I spent twenty minutes sweating.  Finally
"Wildman" appeared again, and we dashed up the ramp to those last two seats.  We flew from Boston to Washington, DC.  It was 90 degrees in DC, and still a reported 73 degrees in Mpls./ St. Paul.  We were dressed for 40 degrees and, Katahdin....

(Oh Katahdin!!!!!  I said the word just now....and I am back up there....up on top....way up on top....and it is clear.... and I can see forever....and the world is just so incredibly beautiful...and peaceful.  And I am so....so aware of everything...so alive.  I want to hold onto that...to make it last....to plant it deeply into my being....so the roots of Katahdin stay strong....with me forever.)

Then we flew another plane from DC to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Terminal....walked out the door....got hugs from my brother's wife...jumped in a car, and we were home.

I had gotten up earlier today, .... ate some apple pie.... weighed myself.... 146 pounds.... down from 175.  Oh my goodness.....  It is a long hike from Georgia to Maine.

Now I am awake again.  I just pulled on my pants and it occurred to me, that I have more pants!  I have more choices!  I am home!  My life has changed again, overnight.  I can not wait to see where it goes. 

But today...... I will wear my grey hiking pants again.....and those grey pants that hiked the length of the AT with me.... will keep a part of me........ right there.... walking up a mountain.... following a path of white blazes.... on the Appalachian Trail.
I am indeed..."HAWKEYE".....A MOUNTAIN MAN!