Hi, this is Anita, Shane's sister. Shane doesn't have a computer on the trail (obviously!) so whenever he sends a postcard or a letter or calls from a pay phone, I type it in here. When he calls I write down what he says as fast as I can on the back of whatever is handy, so if it sounds a little choppy that's me, not him. My notes are in italics like this. — A.

He's off! Mom and Dad and I drove him down to Amicalola Falls State Park yesterday after work and we all stayed at the lodge. This morning he signed the register at the visitor center (he was the 31st person to sign it today, the ranger said it's been busy) and then he walked up the stairs beside the falls with his pack on and turned around at the top and waved, and that was it. Mom cried. Dad said "well" about eleven times. It's about eight miles on the approach trail up to Springer Mountain, where the real trail starts, so he should be sleeping up there tonight. We won't hear from him until Neels Gap, which is about thirty miles past that. He picked his trail name himself, Slowpoke. He says he figures he might as well get it over with before somebody gives him a worse one.

Made it to Neels Gap, about thirty miles in. Got to the top of Springer about four o'clock Saturday. There's a bronze plaque set in a rock up there and a register in a little metal box, and I signed it "Slowpoke, Knoxville, TN, northbound, here goes nothing." Climbed Blood Mountain yesterday, which is the highest the trail goes in Georgia, and it nearly killed me. There's an outfitter store here where the trail goes right through the building, under a breezeway, and they will go through your pack with you if you ask. I asked. The guy pulled out a hatchet, a second pair of jeans, a whole bottle of shampoo, a hardcover book and a cast iron skillet that Dad said I'd be glad of. I mailed home nine pounds of stuff. (He says tell Dad no offense about the skillet.) My feet hurt in places I didn't know were part of a foot. It snowed a little Monday night. Everybody here is from somewhere different. There's a retired schoolteacher from Michigan, a couple from Germany and a kid just out of college who is carrying a guitar.

One state down! Crossed into North Carolina this morning. There's just a little wooden sign nailed to a tree, but I stood there and took a picture of it with the disposable camera anyway. Seven days in a row of rain before that. Have a trail family now. Biscuit (Ohio, a nurse), Two Socks (retired, wears two pair at once), and Crayon (the guitar kid). We go the same speed, which is slow. Love to Mom. Send Snickers. — S.

Picked up my box at the post office here. (Mom sent the Snickers, plus cookies, plus socks, plus a card from Grandma.) Slept last night in the shelter by the lake that everybody calls the Fontana Hilton because it has a real bathroom with a shower nearby. Tomorrow we walk across the top of the dam and go into the Smokies. You have to have a permit and stay in the shelters in the park, and the shelters here have chain-link fence across the front so the bears can't get in. Two Socks says that's so the bears can look at us like we're in a zoo. My knee was bothering me on the downhills but it's better. Biscuit taped it. She says I walk like a duck.

We got to see him! He called Tuesday night from a motel in Gatlinburg, where he'd hitched down from Newfound Gap for a shower and a real bed, and said he'd be back up at the Gap on Wednesday around noon to start walking again, so Mom and Dad and I drove up from Knoxville (it's only about an hour and a half) and waited in the parking lot with a cooler of fried chicken and a whole pecan pie. He came walking out of the woods at 12:40 with snow on his hat. He has lost weight already and has a beard that Mom is not happy about. He ate four pieces of chicken and half the pie standing up. He said he went over Clingmans Dome on Monday, which is the highest point on the whole Appalachian Trail, and it was so socked in with fog and snow he couldn't see ten feet, and there's an observation tower at the top and he walked up it anyway and saw "white." Then he hugged everybody and walked back into the woods. Mom cried again. I did too a little.

The trail comes right down the main street in Hot Springs. You just walk off the mountain and you're on the sidewalk going past the stores. There really are hot springs here and for not very much money you can soak in a tub of hot mineral water by the French Broad River, which I did for an hour, and it was the best hour of my life so far. Took my first zero today. (A "zero" is a day you hike zero miles. I am learning the lingo.) Ate a big breakfast twice, once at 7 and once at 10. Two Socks is going to get off for a week to go to his granddaughter's christening and then try to catch up. I hope he does.

Dear Anita and everybody,

Writing this in a shelter with my headlamp on. It's about 8:30 which is hiker midnight. Everybody else is asleep and one of them is snoring like a chainsaw. Over the last couple of days we went over Big Bald, which is just what it sounds like, a big grassy mountaintop with no trees, and you can see forever. The wind up there about took my pack cover off. I keep thinking about how I used to stand behind the contractor counter at the store and look at the clock. Out here I don't know what time it is half the time and I don't care. I get up when it's light and walk till I'm tired. My legs have quit hurting in the mornings. I'm getting a little faster but not much, so the name still fits. Tell Paul at the store hi and that I'm not coming back to the lumber yard in August like I said, it's going to be at least October. Please send more of the oatmeal packets with the raisins, the cinnamon ones are getting old.

Love, Shane

Virginia! Out of Tennessee and North Carolina for good. Damascus is a little town where the trail goes right through the middle, and everybody waves at you. There's a church hostel where you can stay for a donation and the guy at the outfitter fixed my pack strap for free. Virginia has more trail than any other state, about a quarter of the whole thing, so I'm going to be here a while. People say Virginia is flat. People are wrong. (He says he's about 460 miles in, and that he has "eaten a whole pizza by himself, twice.") Crayon got off the trail for good last week, his knees gave out, and it was hard to say bye. He's going to try again next year.

Went through the Grayson Highlands yesterday. There are wild ponies up there that walk right up to you and try to lick the salt off your arms. One ate part of Biscuit's map. Best day yet, sunny and cool, big open meadows and rocks. Tell Mom my beard is now "distinguished." — S.

Went back for Trail Days this past weekend. I'd already gone on past Damascus, but a bunch of us got a ride back down there, because you just have to. It's a big festival for hikers, every May, and the whole town turns into a tent city. There were people there who hiked the trail twenty years ago and people who hadn't even started yet. There's a hiker parade down the main street and the town kids wait along the sidewalk with water guns and buckets and let you have it. I got soaked. I saw Two Socks there! He caught a ride down too and he says he's back on the trail about four days behind us. A church had a booth giving away hot dogs and I ate five. Somebody looked at my boots and said they look like boots that have walked five hundred miles, which I'm choosing to take as a compliment. (He's about 530 miles in now. Next update will be Part 2. — A.)