April and I went to my 10 year Parkview High School reunion last night at the Sweetwater brewery. It was pretty fun, we were about to see a few old friends but a bunch of people didn’t show up. Only about 15% of our class was there I’d say. Only about 3 or 4 people I really knew in high school were there and then a few acquaintances were there as well. That’s the problem with the large graduating classes that we all had, you just don’t know everyone. There were some people there that I have no clue who the heck they were. Our class president and vice president organized it and most of their crowd was there.

Hopefully at the next one more people will come and we’ll get to see some old friends.

Some of you might have seen the latest pictures I posted about my backpacking trip in Maryland. If not, what are you waiting for, go check them out!

Two Wednesday’s ago I left work for a 10 furlough and some of which included a planned backpacking trip with my Stepdad (Ed) and my brother. We’ve been wanting to go on a several day backpacking trip for a year or so but couldn’t get things together. This time we were able to work it out and meet in Maryland at the south end and hike the entire AT in Maryland up to Pennsylvania, 41 miles.

I left Wednesday morning and drove the 10.5 hours up to Hagerstown, MD where Ed’s sister lives and I met up with Jon and Ed and spent the night. Thursday morning we dropped off a car at the PA line and then drove down to Harper’s Ferry, VA and parked a car to start our trek north. Harper’s Ferry is a cool historic town with a lot of sight-seeing to do which we skipped; we had 10 miles to hike! We walked through the town across the old train bridge and down onto the old C&O Canal towpath. It was about 3 miles of this level trail along the Potomac River before we turned up into the woods. Then it was a nice long up hill to get onto the ridge and then mainly ridge running from there. That first night we camped out in the tents and were rained on during dinner so we turned in early.

Day Two was the longest hike of 12 miles. This day was probably the worst hike for me. My feet and shoulders were sore and I didn’t want to put that pack on again. The morning was pretty uneventful and after 7 miles we stopped as a small campground for lunch. Maryland is more civilized along the trail than Georgia. This campground had about 5 sites and a bathroom! We were able to clean up a little bit here. After lunch we walked through the Washington Monument State Park. Pretty cool old monument stands on top of South Mountain. We took a short break and then continued on. Towards the end of the day we crossed over I-70 on a foot bridge which was VERY load, especially when you’ve been in the woods for so long. After I-70 another 0.5mile and we were at the Pine Knob shelter/ campsite. The shelter was full so we set up the tents. We needed to air them out anyway. During this day’s hike Ed wasn’t feeling good and he bruised his foot pretty bad.

Day Three we decided to part ways and while Jon and I would continue north, Ed called his sister to pick him up so he can recover off the trail. Day Three started off rainy and foggy with a lot of ascents and descents which made things slow going. Jon and I had to hike about 8.5 miles or so to the next shelter and our scheduled stop for the night. After the fog lifted we were able to pick up the pace and arrived at the Cowall shelter around 1pm. We ate lunch and took a nap until dinner where we tried to eat as much as possible so we didn’t have to carry it. That evening a mother/daughter hiking together arrived at the shelter and another father/son team. Six of us in the shelter and about 10 others in tents around the shelter. Around midnight a thunderstorm arrived and poured on us for a few hours but we were nice and dry in the shelter.

Day Four Jon and I got an early start and headed north again and this time to our car, not a tent site or shelter. This hike was pretty rocky and hilly so we weren’t going as fast as the third day. Some boyscouts passed up running along the trail with packs on and one slipped and gouged out his knee pretty bad. I told them they needed to slow down but they didn’t listen, that’s 12 year old for ya. During midmorning we exited the woods into a few old cow pastures which was pretty cool, a nice change of scenery, but all the grass we were walking through made our socks and pants wet. High Rock overlook was the only other notable event this day. It was a great overlook and we stopped here for lunch. Then around 2:30pm or so we ended our hike at the Pen Mar park where my car was parked.

Great trip! I think we are going to try and do another similar hike next year and start in Harper’s Ferry in Virginia and head south for a few days.

With the economy the way it is, how busy is everyone really? Judging by the fact that I just got to work and I’m now posting on rayd, my work load is extremely low. Yesterday and today I’ve had enough work for about half the day and I’ve stretched to just about a full day. No one is building anything in this economy and it’s really starting to hurt us. Anyone else having the same problem?

It’s been so slow that our 2 co-op students are now on an on-call basis and not full time. About 4-5 months ago they reduced our pay and this summer we are taking turns taking 2 weeks of unpaid vacation. I’m the first, taking 8 days off in the middle of May. Luckily we were able to save for a while so we can float through the missed paycheck but several in a row would be hard and I hope it doesn’t come down to that.

A couple of guys here are looking into second jobs in the evening. As an example one is our accountant by day and pizza delivery guy by night. Another engineer applied to deliver pizzas as well at Pizza Hut and as for me right now I mow two neighbors lawn so I’m debating about marketing that up and maybe get another 1 or 2 more or just find a part time night job somewhere. Any ideas for part time evening jobs? I was thinking something like Home Depot or UPS or something like that but I haven’t really sat down and looked at what is out there.

Has anyone heard from your respective high schools about your 10 year reunion? Brad and I have been contacted about Parkview’s which will be this summer at the Sweetwater Brewery. April and I plan on going, I haven’t seen any of these people in a while. Some of you might remember a few from our Hendricks dorm days, Jeremy Hakimi and Trea Brown. I’m interested to see some of the friends I had in high school but immediately after graduation we lost touch. There was about 20 of us or so that used to hang out and I think it would be nice to catch up and see what people are up to nowadays.

Anyone heard about theirs?