Responsibility?

After leaving Marion, where Jess's mom dropped us off for DugOut's birthday, we didn't make it very far before Jess got some kind of awful stomach virus. We assume he caught it from a bad water, as he drank untreated water from a stream that I didn't drink from. We had run out of Aqua Mira, our water treatment method, and were almost out fuel (so no boiling our water clean), so we didn't have much of a choice. We spent the day laid up in a shelter. Luckily, the weather that day was pretty terrible, so our tribe didn't make it that far, and we were able to catch them the next day. Upon catching them, we learned that Jen's mom was driving down from PA for a visit. Jess was still feeling ill, so we didn't really move, camping out near Atkins, VA, so that Jen's mom could pick us all up the next day. She brought us to Wythville (ironically, the town my Grandpa Muench broke his hip in, so I had actually spent some time in this town already), and put all of us (Jess, myself, DugOut, and DizzyBat, and of course Jen) up in a motel with a pool for the whole weekend so she could visit with her daughter without worrying about her loosing her crew! By the end of the weekend, DugOut and DizzyBat decided they would take advantage of Jen's mom travelling north and yellow-blaze with her up to Waynesboro so that they could take their time hiking Shenendoah National Park before she had to leave for her brother's wedding in Mexico. They plan on meeting us again in Waynesboro so they can do the AquaBlaze with us. Meanwhile, Jen, Jess, and I got dropped off in Bland and hiked on. The mountains of VA are pretty dull compared with the prior hike. Instead of hiking up 3000 ft in 3 miles or less to be greeted by astounding views, we hike up 1000 ft in 3 miles and then walk a (supposedly flat) ridgeline for another 3, and then find ourselves walking down another hill to a road or a little podunk "town". No views, no reward, but still just as tired. Even when there is a view, instead of being greeted by huge, jagged mountains and impressive green valleys, we only see more flat ridges. Then it started raining, and all reports said it wouldn't stop for a week. We got to a little road tired and wet and stopped for a snack, and threw out our thumbs at every car that drove by just for kicks. Usually this wouldn't result in a hitch, but I guess this woman took pity on our pathetic looking selves, so she brought us to Newcastle, 25 miles from the trail, and treated us to Subway! From there we hitched (our hitch was very nice, and told us of a secret campsite near Apple Orchard Falls) to Catawba, near Roanoke, where Jess's Grandma Rumburg picked the 3 of us up and brought us to her house for showers and delicious home-cooked meals! Jess's parents came down the next day, and we spent the weekend together. Thursday, Russ did us the added favor of picking up a friend of ours (Ninja and Blue the dog) off the trail, who spent the night in the backyard. On Friday, Jen and Ninja got dropped off at Buchannon. We will be meeting them tonight at the secret site near Apple Orchard Falls. We'll be about 90 miles away from Waynesboro, with 10 days till the AquaBlaze, and we couldn't be more excited. 20 miles per day sitting down!!

This next piece is a response to my Grandpa Muench's comment on our previous blog.

We are very glad you have been able to comment on our blog, I know you had been having difficulties figuring it out. I ask, what is a responsibility? It is certainly not responsibility that keep Jess and I together, but love. He hikes much faster than me, and walks away from me multiple times a day, but it is not "responsibility" that gives him pause, it is love. He knows I can take care of myself, and as I am carrying food, water, and the tent, and that the trail is highly populated by friendly people and has shelters every 10 miles or less, he knows that I would be fine if left on my own. But because he misses my company, he pauses and waits for me once an hour or less. We have been hiking with Jen, and now will also add Ninja to our group. She hikes slower than me, but we feel no "responsibility" to wait for her, we do because we want to, because we enjoy her company as well. Since I chose to bring my cell phone and to create a blog, we haven't walked away from the "responsibility" to keep in touch with our family and friends, though I still feel "responsibility" is a coarse word to describe something that I don't at all consider a responsibility, because I quite enjoy keeping in touch with people in one form on another.
So, I would say the only "responsibility" we have walked away from is our civic duty to do something useful for the society that has turned us into the people we are today through the education system and through the norms and values instilled in us through parents, teachers, and friends, not to mention the society that feeds us, clothes us, houses us, and protects us. Despite our criticism of society, we are keenly aware that without this unified "society", there might be warring factions tearing apart the neighborhoods of America, similar to the disunity we see in the Middle East. Because of this "society", some people farm our food, some people make our goods, some people count our money, and even fewer people actually get to make money, but that's neither here nor there. Point being, it is only because of "society", and this division of labor, that Jess and I are able to do this. In fact, it is only because of Jess' Grandparents Kennedy's hard work for their entire lives that we are able to do this, as they are funding this adventure. So we do feel a responsibility to return the favor to the society that they have been a part of, and that we have been raised in and been a part of. However, as we have spent 22 years being raised within the society, we thought the best thing to do would be to walk away from it, for a little while, to best figure out how we can serve society by getting an outside perspective. We do feel, as you may have observed from previous comments, that society has problems, and we hope that we may be able to help them, or fix them, or work with them to lessen them, one day in the future. In the meantime, we're trying to figure ourselves out so that we know the best way for us to go about doing that. Jesus himself walked away from his problems for a time, into the desert, to work out how he could best alleviate the problems of his time, not to mention the period of his life that is absent from the Bible (aged 12-30).
For right now, if we don't like something, we can just pick up and walk away. That's kind of the idea of this whole thing. It's pretty cool, actually, and I recommend it to anyone who feels life's little pressures are bringing them down. With the media bombarding us with fear, and Ashton Kutcher et al. participating actively in the dumbing down of America's youth, and cars and businesses polluting us into climate change and lobbying so that even the most reform-minded leaders are unwilling or unable to force the change we need, it's been nice to walk away. Don't worry. We'll be back.

Love you:) And thanks for the food for thought:)

From the P.H.L.O. (aka. Phantom Hiker Lost Outdoors, aka Party Hard, Live Once)
I hope my previous blog was not taken as facetious. I really do appreciate Doris' comment, their balancing effect, and the insuing dialogue. I never wished to imply that we were walking away from our responsibilities, but rather from situations we found undesirable. We most certainly have the responsibilities of feeding ourselves, creating our shelter, and providing for our personal needs. It is merely my preference and to meet these responsibilities more directly as opposed to the traditional method of working a job and paying others to provide these goods and services. Except for food. Much to my chagrin. But I am in no way claiming my way to be superior or the only right way. I have become very fond of the following bit o' Hindu wisdom: "It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of someone else's with perfection and grace." The Bhagavad Gita

Graveyard here, and I approve PHLO's message