Puma Ghostwalker

My stay in Franklyn North Carolina, was all I could imagine and much more.
I spent the first two days of three off trail, prospecting for the local native rubies.
In all I mailed back to NYC 35lbs. of rocks and semi-precious stones. Thank goodness for the USPS priority package, whatever fit in the box went for one rate. Here I stopped carrying my laptop and would ship it priority to my next resupply town too.

I have spent the last several years building the second largest geological and fossil collection in NYC through the help of the Boy Scouts of America where I’m a volunteer.
First would be The American Museum of Natural History and I will never come close to their collection, so I must settle for second, resting under their greatness is a wonderful place to be if you ask me.
A friend and colleague Dr. Alan Benimoff a professor at a local CUNY university,
said I was already there. He marveled at some of my specimens, the flint nodules he said, where the best examples he had ever seen. I told him he could bring his students by for study and specimen projects too.

My third day in town was spent resupplying, I got two more batteries for my blackberry.
My camera has three batteries and with all the recharging in place, I was able to use my Blackberry and camera as much as I need to and charged the from town to town as I went in for resupply. I remember searching for the best cell phone carrier information as I planed my hike two years past with no luck. I made the right choice with Verizon,
I had Sprint and my gut said switch and I always follow my gut…it’s a gift…..
Hiking for three months, meeting many people along the way with cell phones
I’m here to testify that Verizon works best, well from Georgia to the north part of Virginia anyway. I keep my cell phone off and would power it up at camp and post in real time, you got to love technology…….and duct tape.

I stayed at Ronnie Haven’s Budget Inn in Franklyn and I must say the ladies were so helpful kind and lovely through and through. I would eat pizza delivered as I spent time at night uploading my photos and video to my laptop then to my many blog sites on the internet. I started shooting video south of Franklin at Betty Creek Gap and my videos on you-tube was a big part of my documentation, filming all the sights nature had to offer me. The few months prior to my hike, I started making videos of beekeeping and
wild food foraging, so I had a little experience already. Like I said before I follow my gut and my gut said to make more video of my hike so I did, now its so much a part of my hike, when I pick up the trail in May I have to continue, I want to continue. Processing the video to the internet was very time consuming in my town stays and I would spend many nights uploading all night long, getting up and checking progress. As time went on I would make about five, ten minute videos from resupply to resupply and post them to youtube.

North of Franklyn at Wine Spring I made camp on the tenth of June. Rested and ready to
go on my next resupply point was at the Fontana Dam right at the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains. Wine Spring was a cozy little camp spot with a great water source.
In the morning I broke camp and headed out with fresh eyes to see what our mother earth had to offer me. It was a beautiful sunny day and when I made it to Wayah Bald, the views were spectacular. Wayah is the Cherokee word for wolf and it felt like a sacred place in my heart. I took it all in, had lunch shot lots of video and took my rain coat out and had it dry in the sun. for the last week or so you could hear the thunder around two PM. By
Four PM, it was raining every day like clockwork. I was so use to being wet, I was wet from sweat or rain, but usually both, one thing you can count on when your out hiking long distances, you will always be wet. Your rain gear is just to help keep you from being drenched and that’s it. Every night at camp I would take my wet cloths off and put my camp/town cloths, a pair of shorts and a dry shirt no undergarment. I needed the fresh air to dry me the best I could. I slept nude every night it actually was the only time I would be totally dry during my whole hike. Long pants helped me from getting totality eaten by bugs, the black gnats were the worst and I ended up with infections from the bites. That was my biggest health problem during my hike, I would carry sanitizing wipes and clean my body every night before or in bed worked well as I was totality naked.