North Carolina

Bought a 6 pack of beer in a dollar general, drank it in the next door McDonald's.  Hiker time hits hard, 10pm feels like 2am now that im on the sun's schedule.  Its been dropping below freezing most nights, ive taken to sleeping with my electronics and water inside my sleeping bag to keep them from being damaged.  I did the first true leg of the trail, from the approach at amicalola falls to mountain crossing at neel gap by myself in 4 days.. then I cheated and skipped 40 miles.  My ex-coworker Ryan(trail name garfield) and his friend Max who ive met (trail name grasshopper) started 5 days ahead of me, and instead of doing what would have turned into multiple weeks of trying to catch up to them i just took a bus and met them ahead.  Since im already not really attempting a thru-hike, I dont feel bad about missing 40 miles of Georgia.  We've been hiking together for 4 nights, but Franklin NC is our endpoint together.  Grasshopper is headed back to New Jersey for work, while Garfield is raring to go all out.  I, meanwhile, am moving at a sloth's pace.  Its true that my bag is heavier and I have less time conditioning on the trail than them, but I also think I'm looking for something different.  Im not as into the whole 'race to katahdin' aspect as the rest of the people out here.  Most people are only packing as little as possible to get them from resupply to resupply, while ive been walking with heavy paper books and little luxuries.  I have made the decision to stop trying to keep pace with everyone, and live a true vagrant lifestyle.  Ill be taking literally double most peoples time between towns as I meander through the woods.  Im going to do yoga every day, read my books, start doing my online mandarin lessons again, all the things I havent made time for as ive been caught up in trying to keep pace with the people around me.  I'm embracing the hobo lifestyle!