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2001-04-17 10:27
Back.
Well, I finished my trip all right, and there will be Appalachian Trail Journal entries over at astrogirl.com as soon as I have time to transcribe them. I have a few new rules for backpacking trips:
Make sure to include fats in the food bag. I brought olive oil and butter this time, and they made things oh so much better. This is the first time I've not had any joint pain or foot pain or anything resulting from a long distance trip. I did 58 miles in four days and three nights, so it's not like I took it easier on myself.
See above, and bring generally better foods. No Liptons and no mac and cheese. No noodles at all, actually, which is revolutionary for me. I brought two Fantastic Foods products that were great, the chili and the taco filling. I also brought red lentils and barley, which I soaked all day so they'd cook fast. I usually bring almost no proteins (the nuts in the gorp were pretty much it), and this time I included 20-30%. The chili and taco filling are mostly TVP.
No candy. This may seem obvious, but almost all long-distance backpackers carry some kind of candy. I opted instead for dried cherries...no other obvious sugar.
Never tape blisters. This just makes more blisters. If I get a hot spot or a blister, I put bag balm on it. At the end of the day, I alcohol-rub my feet with Purell gel. It feels nice, and it kills bacteria.
This has to do with bodily functions, which I usually avoid discussing, but here it is: No privies unless they are nice and convenient. I was waiting to arrive at a privy (about 10-15 miles apart) to perform, um, large bodily functions (I always pee in the woods. Urine does not help solid waste break down in a privy anyway). This is very bad and sometimes makes me 'miss my chance'[1], which means that I'm carrying around stuff my body doesn't need or want much longer than I need to be. Digging a cat hole is far easier than I remembered (I'd only done it once before where there were no privies and waiting wasn't an option) and is actually a better experience overall. I'm sure The Gus would agree regarding the joys of shitting in the woods.
And now back to your regularly scheduled program.
This doesn't surprise me, but it's quite ominous considering how easy it is to spread: The government has realized that an outbreak of foot and mouth in the U.S. would be almost impossible to control. I can't even imagine all the livestock that would be lost. This could devastate the horse industry in Virginia and Maryland, for instance. Imagine prominent breeders having to slaughter breeding stock they've worked for decades, in some cases two or three centuries, to perfect.[2].
I think chaos would result. Can you even imagine huge ranches being told they have to slaughter all their cows? I think we'd have insurrection. The modern British people have shown that they are far more cooperative with civil authority and able to band together for the good of everyone than Americans.[3] I would be pleasantly surprised if the unthinkable happened here and everyone proved me wrong, but how likely is that?
We are well armed. Especially people in rural areas who are protective of their land and their stock. Think about how they would react to the USDA showing up at their gate saying "we're from the government, and we're here to help."
HR 
[1]This is a Seinfeld quote from a very humorous bit involving Kramer. I'm sure there's some pedantic site that has broken down Seinfeld episode by episode, like snpp.com for the Simpsons, but I'm too lazy too look for it.
[2]It's not that I don't feel bad for food-animal breeders...the economic losses in Britain are staggering. I don't think that people should be relying on animal flesh for so much of their diets. It's devastating to the earth, it's incredibly wasteful of water and other resources, and American methods of food-animal rearing are appalling. In fact, those methods would make foot and mouth spread like wildfire. I'm not saying that everyone has to be a vegetarian, I'm just saying that Americans eat way too much food that consists of animal flesh.
[3]Bill Bryson, who has lived half his life in one place and half of it in another, has an excellent examination of this idea in his book Notes from a Small Island. For the unfamiliar, Bryson is a travel writer who is very funny indeed. I'd recommend any of his books, though for obvious reasons, A Walk In the Woods is probably my favorite, but The Lost Continent is a close second.