Gene Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Author: ecg8c46f776730a

  • Worst Fear: Bruins Win The Stanley Cup

    This is the second post in what will be a series on this blog. In the series I highlight my “worst fears” that might happen while I traverse the Appalachian Trail. In my first entry I talked about my fear of alpha-gal syndrome and went into some depth about how his series will go. You don’t have to read that entry before this one, but if you do it helps my metrics.

    The Stanley Cup finals begin today. Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights, who won their respective conferences and will compete for the most famous piece of hardware in North American sports. My worst fear is that next year the winner will be the Boston Bruins.

    At this point, I should mention that I am a big Bruins fan. I’m wearing my David Krejčí jersey as I type this. I wasn’t always a Bruins fan. I followed the NBA and college basketball as a kid and only really watched hockey during the Stanley Cup finals. I never quite learned all the different weird names of all the divisions and conferences. The Adams and the Norris winners play for the Wales trophy or some shit? Once I moved to Massachusetts for college I became much more invested in the NHL and college hockey. Going to a Beanpot is a New England rite of passage.

    Since I never really followed a team as a youngster, I kind of picked up the Bruins as my team. This lasted until 1997 when the Hartford Whalers decamped and moved to Raleigh, becoming the Carolina Hurricanes. I am from North Carolina and felt like I owed it to the team that came to the state of my birth to pledge my allegiance. Despite still living in the Boston area, I threw my support behind the Canes. I bought a shirt and a hat and everything. The only problem was that I never really watched the Canes or followed the team because 90% of the hockey I consumed was on NESN. Nevertheless, I told myself and my friends that I was a Canes fan; even as I watched Bruins games multiple times a week.

    This charade went on for almost a decade. I finally came to my senses on the night of June 19, 2006. That night the Hurricanes defeated the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 in game 7 to capture the Stanley Cup. The first and still only major professional sports title won by a team from North Carolina. And while the players were parading the Stanley Cup around the ice I felt nothing. I felt no real pride or satisfaction. I just kind of felt, “oh well, good for those guys”. That was when I realized that if I could not get excited for the team after winning the title in game 7 I was never going to. So the next season I finally admitted that I was a Bruins fan and started to act like it. I bought a shirt and a hat and everything.

    Being a Bruins fan during that period was tough sledding. They didn’t make the playoffs in 2007 and barely made it in 2008, before losing in the first round. The 2009 team finished only one point away from the President’s Trophy before losing in seven games to the Hurricanes. 2010 was the year everything was going to be different. The year all those “we want it as much as you do” banners all over North Station were supposed to finally mean something. That was until the Flyers playoff series.

    Boo this man

    One day I’ll be able to see or hear the name Scott Hartnell without weeping like a small girl, but I have not yet reached that point. In the second round in 2010 Boston took a 3-0 lead on Philly in the best-of-7 series. Through bad play, bad luck, and general bad vibes they blew that entire lead and had to play a seventh and decisive game at home. I happened to have drill that weekend at Fort Devens, but we got barracks and the barracks had cable so after a day on the range everyone could catch hot chow and a hot shower before settling in for the game.

    The game started as promisingly as possible and the Bruins opened a 3-0 lead in the first period. Milan Lucic scored twice. The day room in the barracks was jumping and everything was right with the world. The Flyers outplayed Boston from that point forward and by the middle of the third period it was 3-3. Then Boston took the worst “too many men on the ice” penalty since 1979 and allowed a power play goal to Simon Gagne that proved to be the series winner. The day room in the barracks was a mausoleum and the world deserved to burn to the ground. Hartnell had two points in the clincher and finished the series with 5 points and a +3 rating. The numbers themselves don’t paint the full picture of just how much of an annoying shit Hartnell could be over seven games.

    So going into 2010-2011 the team was still wearing that frustration, but won the division behind captain Zdeno Chara’s league leading +33 rating and Vezina winner Tim Thomas in goal. They exorcised some demons by beating the Flyers on their way to the Eastern Conference title. That led to a Stanley Cup matchup with the Vancouver Canucks in June.

    Being an Army Reservist meant there were lots of sacrifices you needed to make. One of which was that they sucked two weeks of every summer away for Annual Training. Of course in 2011 the Annual Training was in Fort Stewart in Georgia. Also of course, it was during the exact same time as the Stanley Cup. Unlike the aforementioned drill at Fort Devens, this training exercise was a full-on field problem. They took multiple different units from all over the eastern seaboard and dropped us onto a training area with GP larges and mediums as far as the eye could see. No creature comforts. There was barely any cellular service and even fewer locations to keep a civilian computer or wireless phone charged. We were only able to get the scores of each game the morning after when somebody made a run to the DFAC and grabbed hot chow for breakfast.

    And by the way, in case you’ve never had the privilege, Fort Stewart in the summer is hotter than the Fonz is cool. Satan probably does his Annual Training drills for the demons in hell there. I’ve lived in Las Vegas and Austin. I’ve worked in the Mojave Desert and Caribbean jungles in the summer. Fort Stewart is far more miserable. Imagine the most humid place you’ve ever been in your life and then add 50% humidity to it while also well into the high 90’s the entire time the sun is out. Our wet bulbs told us it was heat category 5 every second from about an hour after sunrise to an hour after sunset. We spent at least half of everyday being prevented from training and just sitting in our tents sweating our balls off sucking down as much water as our buffalo could hold. In short the whole thing was horrid, and never knowing what was going on in the Cup Final was the coup de grâce.

    Boston and Vancouver punched and counter-punched through six games and got set for a winner-take-all game 7 on June 15th. This also happened to be the last day of our actual training so the leadership let those of us who wanted take a GSA (minivan) and go to a bar on post to watch the game in civilian clothes. We were forbade from drinking and had to come back as soon as the game ended, but at least it was some kind of reward for a grueling exercise. There were reports of bad weather coming in that night, so we were told to be mindful that if the skies went sideways they would recall us. Of course, the skies went sideways.

    Shortly into the second period, with the Bruins up 1-0, we got the call to leave the bar and cheese it back to the training area. We drove back through a pretty significant rainstorm. What we saw when we got back was crazy, though.

    A microburst had come down right in the middle of our AO. Radio antennae knocked over, tents toppled everywhere, soldiers standing around in various different uniforms fumbling in the dark trying to figure out what was going on. Everyone briefly gathered whatever they had within arm’s reach and walked over to the Reserve Center about three blocks away.

    The Reserve Center was in no way built to provide shelter for all of the soldiers from this exercise. We all had to stand basically nuts to butts in the basement waiting for the “all clear” in case any further storms came in. In my civilian clothes, I was so much more fortunate than those were in the training area when the microburst happened. Everyone was just dressed in whatever they had when the worst of it started. There were people in brown T-shirts and PT pants. ACU jacket and PT shorts with boots. One poor woman had on just a PT shirt and a towel wrapped around her. I guess she was in the middle of a shower at the worst possible time.

    As we all stood there hot and cramped and cranky and miserable, some kind soul was able to get a radio feed of the game over the internet. So I listened to a staticky radio call of the final six minutes of game 7 as Tim Thomas closed out a 4-0 shutout of the Canucks. After the game ended we all stood there for about an hour until they bussed us to some auditorium somewhere or another. We sat in the auditorium until they procured us some barracks to use for the night.

    The next morning we all went back to ground zero and fixed up the tents, collected our things, and got everything ready to tear down. Fortunately, since all of the tents fell straight down most people’s gear stayed right where it was left. A few people lost a few things that had to go down as “field losses” but nothing major like a sensitive item or anything. After packing up our area and spending one more night in the barracks we left on a jet plane back to Boston just in time for the victory parade.

    So basically I missed the 2011 Stanley Cup and did not get to experience it the way I would have liked. Boston went back to the Cup final in 2013 and 2019 but lost both. And the less said about the 2022-2023 season, the better.

    I figure at my age I’ll be lucky enough to see one or maybe two more Bruins championships before I die. Considering what happened in 2011, my worst fear is for them to win in 2027 and I wouldn’t be able to watch or enjoy any of the action.

    Marco Sturm, if you are listening, do well next year. Make the playoffs and even win a round. Bonus points if you knock out Toronto again. But save the deep postseason runs for 2028 and beyond.

  • Around ACC Highland

    As those of you who are frequent readers of this blog already know (both of you), I am a proponent and aficionado of free, public, outdoor fitness areas. I cannot pass up an opportunity to highlight the area around ACC Highland because it not only includes two such locations but also a short trail that dovetails into a longer trail for anyone interested. There is a lot in the area for anyone looking for a nice quick workout or hike during a lunch break or lazy weekend morning.

    ACC Highland is one of the campuses of Austin Community College. This particular one is housed in what used to be Highland Mall. The region used to be one of the higher parts of the city so there are a lot of place and street names that play on it. Crestview neighborhood, Twin Crest and Eastcrest Drives nearby. Highland Mall opened in 1971 and served the community for over forty years before closing in 2015. From there the building was scooped up by ACC and transformed into the shiny collegiate location of today.

    With as overwhelmingly hot as it gets in Austin pretty much all the time between March and November, you really need to fumble the bag to screw up an air conditioned, indoor shopping mall. That place should have printed money forever and ever.

    Shockingly, racism was one of the big reasons it failed. Highland Mall was in a … what’s the euphemism … “racially diverse” part of Austin and somehow hated the fact that people other than rich whites wanted to shop there. During the Texas Relays (a yearly event around Easter that brings together the best amateur and professional track and field athletes in the state) even more, uh … “urban” youth wanted to shop there. And the pearl clutching began in earnest. Highland Mall faded into irrelevance years before the doors closed for good.

    ACC Highland is shiny and new and all that stuff. A different kind of blog would continue to talk about how great the interior looks and all the wonderful things you can do there. This is not that kind of blog; we are staying outside.

    We begin on campus about a block from Airport Boulevard at the corner of Highland Mall Boulevard and Highland Campus Drive. So named in case you ever happen to forget that you are near ACC Highland for some reason. Here in front of a new apartment building complex is the first outdoor fitness station. This one is robust and includes pullup bars, step platforms of varying heights, dip station, pushup bar, an ab exercise spot, and a lower back extension. I can also proudly report that the water fountain works as well.

    If you are looking for something else to do at this location instead of workout, there is also an outdoor ping pong table. Unlock your inner Marty Supreme if you dare to bring paddles and a ball.

    A couple blocks east along Highland Mall Blvd you’ll reach the beginning of the 1.25 mile Highland Trail. It goes roughly along the perimeter of the ACC Highland footprint. It goes along behind some buildings and passes by a large and open parking lot.

    The parking lot looks like it would be a great place to get sprinting work in. I used to do a lot of sprinting way back before I became old and decrepit. My go-to sprint workout didn’t have a cool name but it always got me tuckered out. All you need to do it is a large open spot (like a parking lot or soccer field) and a way to roughly measure off distances. Go as hard as you can and try not to rest more than a couple minutes between any two sprints.

    • 1/4 to 1/2 mile warmup
    • ten 100-yard sprints
    • eight 80-yard sprints
    • six 60-yard sprints
    • four 40-yard sprints
    • 1/4 to 1/2 mile cooldown

    Just past the parking lot is the second outdoor fitness station. This one is older and has fewer spots in which to workout. It has some pullup bars and pushup bars with a couple of inclined benches for abdominal work. The water fountain here works too. However, I also need to mention that there is zero shade over either fitness area so don’t even think about using them this time of year except for right after dawn or before sunset.

    Highland Trail continues behind another apartment complex (you see, nothing gets built in Austin except apartment buildings and things owned by Elon Musk and the occasional restaurant) and meets up with the Red Line Parkway along Airport Boulevard. The Red Line Parkway is still in development but it is hoped to ultimately become a 32 mile stretch going all the way from Leander to downtown Austin. Anyone in the local area that is interested in hearing more should come to the State of the Parkway presentation at the Central Library on August 26th. Tell them Gene sent you.

    Eventually you come upon Fontaine Plaza on Airport. It is like a super miniature version of Central Park. The plaza and the street that runs next to it are both named for Jacob Fontaine. He was a former slave who became an influential pastor, merchant, and journalist in Austin during Reconstruction. He also played a large part in helping to get UT established in Austin. Hook ’em.

    Those purple poles on the plaza are part of a light art project that is supposed to resemble bats in flight. I should mention here for those of you that are unaware, ACC teams are called the Riverbats in honor of the bats that live downtown.

    From Fontaine Plaza you can walk a short distance back to the first fitness station or complete the 1.25 mile loop of Highland Trail. Like I said at the start, this is a great area to kill an hour or so and get a good sweat on. You really don’t need to bring anything with you except a desire to explore. And your house keys, don’t forget those or you’ll have trouble getting inside when you get home.

  • Solidarity

    I had been excited for the merry, merry month of May. I planned to use this month to start making some purchases that I’ll need for my thru-hike next year. I already have a lot of the things I’ll need, but I definitely have a wish list as well.

    1. One large backpack (somewhere around 55-65 L)
    2. One sleeping bag
    3. One or two pairs of those cool hiking pants with the legs you can unzip and then they become shorts (seems like they are called “convertible hiking pants”)
    4. One entrenching tool or similar multi-purpose shovel / axe thing
    5. One tablet computer, to make blogging on the trail easy

    I actually pretended to be an adult and budgeted $400 this month to purchase a few of those items. Why did I choose this month specifically? Well, because this month is the big, exciting REI Anniversary Sale! The one time all year when the greatest outdoor store in the world has their best prices for their loving customers and members. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I found out that there was a planned boycott during the sale.

    Lots of crazy people yell at the rain and call for boycotts for all sorts of dumb reasons. Those boycotts usually go unnoticed by right-minded individuals. This boycott, however, comes from the members and workers of REI itself. Therefore it seems worthwhile to hear about why they are doing it.

    REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc) began in 1938 in Seattle as a co-operative founded to allow outdoorsmen and women a way to get quality camping and hiking gear at affordable prices. From that humble beginning REI became one of the leading outdoor retailers in the country. It was able to parlay the public’s love for the outdoor industry into millions of dollars in profits every year while still maintaining its core principles as a co-op. Great benefits for workers and members, money to spend promoting the outdoors and protecting the environment, and some left over to line the executives’ pockets.

    COVID-19 brought changes for REI the company and the public image of REI. The first cracks in the corporate image facade appeared as lax enforcement of CDC guidelines and COVID-19 safety protocols. Things like not being transparent with workers about who had the illness and having workers work too closely with one another.

    Still though, the bottom line continued to perform to expectations. After a down year in 2020 (like nearly everyone else), REI made $3.7 billion in revenue with a net income of $97.7 million in 2021. By 2022 revenue increased to a record $3.9 billion. However, income was a net negative of $164.7 million. Equally important in 2022, the REI store in SoHo, Manhattan (New York City, not Kansas) voted to become the first union store. The execs in the suits were less than pleased with the associates in the green vests.

    As more stores unionized the company became colder and colder to their workers. Among other things, REI quietly settled a charge of attempted union busting in at least one location.

    By 2025 the company went full mask off and left their co-op ideals behind. REI initially supported Doug Burgum for U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Having this billionaire, business-first, ex-management consultant in charge of the nation’s public lands and wildlife is literally letting the fox into the hen house. REI also tried to pass a slate of corporate yes-men to their board of directors. However, that was voted down by REI’s members. No problem though. REI changed its own rules and packed the board with a bunch of yes-men anyways.

    Now in 2026 the eleven total unionized stores are finding it harder and harder to work with REI. Ever since May 2025 they have been attempting to collectively bargain a contract. The most recent offer from REI was overwhelmingly rejected by the union in February 2026. REI then declared an impasse and wants to unilaterally institute wage and benefit cuts across all stores on the 1st of July. Feeling that they were left with no choice, the union along with REI members called for a boycott of this year’s Anniversary Sale. This is a boycott, not a strike, since a strike would only affect the 11 unionized stores but a boycott can be felt across all stores during the biggest time of the year.

    I linked to information about the boycott above, but I’m linking it again here as well. Please also read the many articles I’ve linked above, because I’m not a journalist and I feel like you should read some of them yourself instead of just skimming my overly brief summations.

    So bringing this back around to me, it really sucks that this is happening. It sucks for the workers at REI. It sucks for me because I’ll support their union and their cause but I’ll need to find somewhere else to shop for my wish list. But I’m happy to do it if it helps support their union cause.

  • North Walnut Creek Trail

    So I threw the old backpack on again and headed out to North Walnut Creek Trail, which you should have been able to figure out from the title. This is the northern portion of the Walnut Creek Trail System, a not-yet-completed trail which will extend 19 miles across northern and eastern Austin when finished. I picked up the trail on Lamar Boulevard just north of Oakbrook and four miles from Balcones District Park. This made for a nice eight mile round trip, and since it took me a few miles to get to my origin this wound up being 11 or 12 total miles of hike.

    This entire trail was paved and very wide, easily accommodating walkers, bikers, strollers, and even a maintenance pickup truck. I probably should have taken a picture of the truck, but I didn’t so you’ll just have to trust me.

    Not long after I started I came upon Walnut Creek Metro Park, the first of three trailheads on my route. With ample parking, a gated pool, and a kids’ play area the location seemed like a good place to chillax for a while but I quickly sped through.

    Along this trail there were lots of unpaved side trails that promised adventure. Trails with exciting names like Log Loops Trail and Ski Slope Trail. However I was unusually focused on completing the main hike and not on doing any side quests. I did see lots of mountain bikers going back and forth between the trails so they are obviously very popular.

    The next significant marker I came across was Gracywoods Neighborhood Park Trail. I did do a small detour thinking there would be a nice neighborhood park nearby. Nope, I was dead wrong. The only thing I saw on the trail was the backs of some apartment buildings. I did come across a meadow with some cool flowers. I know I must be spending more time outside than usual when I use “cool flowers” in a sentence without a hint of irony or sarcasm.

    These flowers are known as gaillardia, and they bloom pretty ubiquitously in central Texas. Actually, all across Texas. They are bright and low maintenance and can handle hot weather. It rained way more than usual in April so these and other flowers have been shooting up all over the place. The cloudy weather lingered during my hike, which explains the grey skies in all my pictures.

    Once I got back on the main trail I was treated to the best mile or so of the day. The walkway went through a wooded area that was shielded from any urban noises and became like a secluded country trail. I passed by some young ladies hanging out in a gazebo and smoking reefer. Or is it “the reefer”? This was a great stroll and it saddened me immensely when I came upon Gracywoods Trailhead, the second of three trailheads, at Metric Avenue.

    Metric Avenue, but they still measure speed in mph

    Gracywoods Trailhead had its own play area. I gave everything a try but I honestly have to give it low marks. The swings were too low and the slides were too narrow. I don’t think anyone over the age of ten would enjoy playing there. Zero of ten stars. The benches did work though, which is always a plus.

    The next big landmark on the way to the end was crossing underneath MoPac. I took a picture because there was one of those hideous Cybertrucks at the intersection. MoPac is one of the main roads north-south in Austin. It has express lanes that can be accessed if you pay a toll. And by “express” I just mean everyone in those lanes likes to “express” themselves by flipping you the bird or honking repeatedly like a siren.

    When I first moved to Austin the second question I asked my friends was why is it called MoPac. The answer is because the road follows roughly the same path as the old Missouri Pacific Railway. By the way, the first question I asked was why is everything freaking thing named after Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar? The answer: because he was a bad ass soldier, politician, and poet. He was also a bigoted racist who did more to harm the Native American cause than almost any other Texan, which also must be mentioned.

    From MoPac on to the third and final trailhead was not much to write home about. It wasn’t bad, just nothing worthy of addition to a blog. The trail got noticeably steep for the last half mile or so. Then I finally reached the third trailhead at Balcones District park.

    Balcones District Park is a spacious open area with clean, working toilets and multiple covered benches where you can sit or host a birthday party. And they also had a play area that I would not recommend to anyone old enough to have hair on their chest. They also had basketball courts and working water fountains. This park is a place where you can go and spend a good half a day easily. Cue a small gallery.

    I hung out there for about a half hour before turning around to head back. Not much happened on the return trip until I got back to almost the beginning. This time I decided to take one of those beaten trails near Walnut Creek Metro Park. I chose one called Powerline Hill.

    I hoped it would be a pleasant, brief, uphill climb that would reward me with a panoramic view of part of the city. I was right about the short climb part. The view wound up just being a bunch of power lines. Oh, and a person on a mountain bike who zoomed past me on the ascent.

    Not shown: a fourth power line just off to the right

    And then I went back down and finished up. And there was much rejoicing.