Half done!

Greetings cheering-on-wildly blog readers!

I am currently in Old Station, and just two days ago passed the halfway point! It feels good to know that there are now fewer miles between me and Canada than between me and Mexico. Recently the hiking has been fairly easy: the days are long, the weather is good, there is much less climbing than in the Sierras, and I'm in pretty good physical condition. I've been going about 25 to 30 miles per day, which is double the daily mileage that my dad and I did our first week. The first 1329 miles took me almost exactly three months, and I hope to complete the last 1329 miles in about two months. Wish me luck!

Amy, Robin, Ernie, and I had a great time when they came to visit. My friend Lelan from Reno was our personal trail angel and drove us all over the place, and we hiked for about four days. It was a lot of fun to see them and have them experience a bit of the trail with me. We had amazing views, made some great memories, and several times I laughed so hard I couldn't stand up! We'll get some pictures from our time together posted at some point.

Another interesting tidbit to share with you is the long distance hiking phenomenon of trail names. Most hikers don't go by their legal names while they're on the trail, but rather have a trail name that they use. Some choose their name, but usually people are christened by other hikers. Some hikers I have traveled with recently are Donut, Sugar Momma, British Slim, Hamster, Escalator, Wrong Way, Pockets, Muchy, Scholar, and Scruffy. I have become known on the trail as Disco because of my tendency to hike with my shirt unbuttoned down to my waist. I've been introducing myself as Disco now for almost six weeks, and I fully anticipate that when I get back into the business world in the fall I'll accidentally call myself Disco instead of Joel at least a few times before I get back into the habit of calling myself Joel.

Tomorrow morning I'll hit the trail again, and probably won't have internet access for another two and a half weeks until I reach Oregon. Thanks for all your support!

Joel