I’ve just completed another week of beautiful hiking in Virginia with Bill. Hiking “into fall season ” with leaves coming off the trees, all colors, from morning to night during our walk in the woods . Even if we doubled our daily milage (it would have been impossible with shortening days and I don’t think our bodies could have withstood 20+miles a day ) we realized we couldn’t reach Georgia this season . We mutually decided that we would end our hiking this year with plans to tackle the remainder next,  2017 hiking season . Starting this past May 1st , with several breaks in between , I’ve hiked 1108 miles of the AT thus far!

Hiking this past week brought us to several memorable mountain peaks .

Thisis McAfee Knob , one of the most photographed spots on the trail . For someone “height challenged ” like me, I was glad I could get out towards that edge:

After a night at Fort Pines Hostel , we trekked up and down some modest hills with big rocks:The latter is named Dragon’s Tooth .

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On top of Brush Mountain we came across a monument to WW II  hero Audie Murphy :

Our week was winding down . Some final wiews of Southern VA :

Bill’s wife Jan picked us up at the end of the day on Sunday . Good timing, as we were out of our food and water supply . Not to worry , after a two hour drive back to my car, we celebrated in our hotel room and had a real meal at a local restaurant .

Next morning I had a ten hour drive back to Cooperstown . Will be raking leaves after posting this blog.

Great to be back to the three loves of my life:my pillow , my piano and Stephanie . I mean, Stephanie , my pillow and my piano .

I really am happy to be home , closer to family and friends , whom I all missed these past several months . I actually am looking forward to getting back to work (PART TIME ) . Need to figure out an alternative exercise plan for upcoming winter months . Can’t keep hiking 6-8 hours a day .

I’m grateful to have been able to complete a significant part of this recent challenge . One lesson learned by me this past year is how important it is for all of us to try to have dreams and goals in our lives:they can be short term /long term goals and they can be easy ones or harder ones. It’s not critical to complete all of them, but rather to try,  day by day, to put forth  efforts to accomplish them.