Day 56 - The Brown Carpet State (26/8/2016)

Vermont went from being a beautiful carpet of red pine needles, to a messy bog of mud on the trail. Admittedly, it just rained, but it seems that southern Vermont is very different from northern Vermont.

Since I've been so focussed on miles lately, there haven't been a lot of great interactions. Either that, or the great interactions are beginning to feel commonplace. In any case, I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell the apple story.

Way back in the 100 Mile Wilderness, most of us were craving some real food pretty badly. Being a week from any chance at a hamburger will do that to a person. Most people craved burgers, pizza, that sort of thing. Not me. Me, I craved a tomato. Or an orange, or something fresh, fruity, and juicy.

So on this day, I was walking in the rain and generally just thinking about tomatoes. I came upon a sandy beach, and went and looked out over a pond on a misty, rainy day. It was really very serene. Glancing up the beach to my left, I noticed something round and yellowish red at the edge of the water. "Taipan," I said to myself (since I was still going as Taipan then), "that appears to be an apple."

I looked at it for a long, long time. I eventually decided that I should at least go and throw it in the bushes so that it didn't sully the wilderness feel of the beach. I wandered over and picked it up. In my hand was the most perfect apple I had ever seen. It had a small bruise less than the size of my thumbnail, and only lightly brown. This imperfection only highlighted how perfect a piece of fruit my eyes were gazing upon. I looked at it for a long, long time again. "Taipan", I said to myself, "this is a perfectly good apple that someone has just accidentally dropped, probably moments ago." And then "Are you really going to throw this away?"

And I looked at that apple for a very long time. And I brushed away some small sandy pebbles that the beach had decorated it with.

And that was the most delicious apple I have ever, or will ever eat. I refuse to apologize for eating a dirty beach apple, for it would have been an insult to all of the apple, nay all of the FRUIT, kingdom, had I simply tossed it in the bushes for the worms. That apple ended its existence as nobly as any apple ever has.

And apparently that story has become well enough known that my name is now synonymous with being the "apple guy."

Start: Spruce Peak + 1 mile
End: Story Spring + 1.5 miles
Distance: 19.5 miles