The Adventure of Brave Little Toaster and Frank N. Stein

im sorry
two thirds of my total trip will have two way conversations.
point

ive been told to say that in my last post i meant one third of my remaining trip which would be one sixth of the total trip.
point

SOOOOO…. Once again so much has happened because a: so much happens and b: I refuse to update this thing ever.

Two major points of interest are:
a) We made it to Kahtadin in Maine and therefore completed the first leg of our trip!!!
b) Frank N. Stein a.k.a. Alex Behr has decided to stop hiking.

This means that the Brave Little Toaster and the Hot Dog will have to move on without him… He will be sorely missed. RIP Frank N. Stein.

Another thing is that Brian Wyle has just told me that he will hike for one month with me! Amazing news. So about one third of the trip will involve twosided conversations!!!

Now I know that was not much, but it is all you get!

Broadcasting from the wilderness,
Brave Litle Toaster

So it has been a while. I want to start by putting this link here: http://picasaweb.google.com/vondy0

This will send you to my picasa page. I added a new album the other day but did not get to do many comments yet. It is a daunting task. Anyway, so much has happened since I last wrote up here that I can’t help but leave things out. I will say that it was incredible running into the OG, Prarie Dog, Angry Beaver, the Divas and everyone else. OG if you read this, it was so incredible getting to see you again and if I dont see you again before you finish you better believe I will be harassing you on my way south.

I captured a magical creature that calls itself D.I.D. It had incredible hands and a voice as smooth as a crystal stream. Its feathers were too bright to be kept in a cage. Part of me knew that and was happy to see it go free, but another part was sad because the world was just that much less colorful without it. I hope it was come back freely sometime…

I was able to make my way to Moonahanis!!!! I cant believe that that was possible. It was such a blast to see all the people there. There are a couple pictures there annnnddddd….

Well I really want to write more but I cant because I have to leave. Bryson is hiking with me for a couple days!!!! Ohhh! and Stein is gone for a while… A moment of silence please. I hope to see him soon! Have a wild ride in MV!

annnnndddd….    Rugged Shark: I have my weather book now thanks to my wonderful mother and am in the process. I will meet you in the Caribbean!

More to come

~Me

So we strolled into Manchester and met a pack of wild divas. It was exhilarating to observe them in such a natural state. There we stayed at a hostel which offered free Ben and Jery’s (as much as you can eat!) Other than this great hostel, which was more accomadating and comfortable than any hotel I have ever stayed at, Manchester is a rich touristy town that no one lives in with two Post Offices, one of which no one can find and had been hoarding hiker packages!!! From there we followed the divas pungent and somewhat malignant scent through pouring rain and dark night, across the End of Days Bridge (because when this thing is washed out it will be the END OF DAYS) and over Killington to Rutland. I hurt my ankle five miles into a 16.5 miles day so it was nice and swollen. We stayed with the Twelve Tribes, Back Home Again Hostel slash backery slash cafe slash religious community. They were nice enought to let us do a little work for them in exchange for our beds and some food! Some really awesome food!!! They were extremely friendly people and could teach us all a lot about how to mean what you say. From there my ankle was still hurting so we limped into Pittsfield. Here there is a farm owned by the man that owns the whole town, Joe. He lets hikers work for stay as well so we spent the day workin on the farm and building a small part of a wilderness survival course. It was indescribably fun. We could use their bikes to ride around, go swimming in the swimming hole, and there was a lot of free food from the Joe owned restaurant. This town is really going to be on the map in the next couple of years. We also met some quite incredible athletes. Richard the 70 mile day Royal Marine, Selica who can only do 50… Anthony who I am not quite sure could have been created without at least a modicum of genetic manipulation and more! I am not even kidding when I say that I haven’t told you half of them.

Well that is the best I can do for now.

Hope to hear from literally all of you soon!

~Me

So I added a bunch of pictures for everyone to look at. They are at the tail end of the other ones. I put up some comments and am all typed out so I will write more for yall later.

http://picasaweb.google.com/vondy0/FirstCoupleHundredMiles#

So I am writing from Hutch’s place in Torrington, CT! He drove an hour to pick us up yestarday and brought us back to his place. WHAT A GUY! It is hard to decide what to write because so much has happened.

We have now covered about ten percent of the trail. I think we are ready to start really moving soon. I can’t believe how much more intense it is than I imagined.

We have started to make some real  friends on the trail. It has been like moving into a traveling community of gypsies. We will meet someone, hike with them for a couple days, and then we will split up only to find them again later.

We spent a bunch of days with OG, Hellbender, L Train and Braid. There have been many others, but I think these ones have had the biggest impact on us. They are incredibly interesting people.

Braid is around 65 years old and seems to have done everything. He just recovered from lyme disease and still covers around 18-22 miles a day. I talked to him a lot about his life and what he has learned and only scratched the surface. He is not with us now, but I hope we see him again soon. Oh, he wrote a song about the trail and I will try to post the lyrics if I can get them down.

I wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been commenting on my last post. I am sorry that the map doesnt show every day where we are. The SPOT that is supposed to show our location is rather spotty. Yestarday we passed into Connecticut. TWO STATES DOWN!!!!

I will try to get better at posting more frequently.

For now, here are some pictures that we managed to take: http://picasaweb.google.com/vondy0/FirstCoupleHundredMiles

Will post again soon,

Brave Little Toaster

This is our twelth day and we have covered over 100 miles, which is roughly 5% of our jounrey. 5% might seem like nothing, but this being what it is it seems like such a big percentage to me. So much has already happened that I do not know where to start. We started out in the rain which hardly seems fair. All in all we have been doing really good though. People have been so nice to us and luck has been our constant gaurdian. Our trail names have been discovered and therefore Alex will heretofore be recognized as Frank N. Stein and I shall answer to Brave Little Toaster (BLT, Toaster, Toast ect.)

So, we have seen so many rocks!!!! We have also seen three bears, a dear (which I did not see,) toads, frogs, a dead possum, 3/4ths of North Americas mosquito population, several turtles of various sizes ranging from hand to half Pork, a four-five foot copperhead rattlesnake and who knows what else.

Things that I have learned, keep your head up when your close, everything breaks, no one needs 5 liters of water and are you gunna eat that?

We have met so many interesting people in places that no one goes to, they just pass by. Who knew that things were happening in there places? Right now we are taking our first zero (no hiking.) We are staying with the ex Mayor of Unionville, NJ. The “Mayor” along with Butch and Bill are three very very generous people who live here. They let all thruhikers stay here, take a shower, have dinner and breakfast and use a computer. They are even Pork friendly. All they want is to hear why you are hiking the trail and to give you a little motivation to keep it up and to give you a litte talk about goals and keeping up the morals of what we have learned while on the trail. It has been indescribable how kindly we have been treated or how meaningful their words have been to me.

Obviously I cannot write everything down, but needless to say, it has been an adventure!

~Brave Little Toaster

This blog needs a title.  Come up with one.