08/26/2026
The trail is magical place.. be kind. Be positive. Be awesome.. negative vibes are lame, boring and exausting.
Goooooood beautiful morning from blairsville, ga. Man, it is another absolutely gorgeous day to be alive. Be beautiful and kind. The trail is a magical place if you put the negative vibes aside and let the trail speak to you. People come here to escape the chaos of cookie cutter society. Most of us are looking to escape the grasps of the internet and the noise of the city.. the non stop loud noises of today and the one up you society we live in. Mary and i left the city because we did not want to deal with people that want to take all the time. They will step all over someone or something to be on top. People will cut a person down just to make themselves look better instead of just doing it better and giving your neighbor a hand up while doing it better. I would rather see someone prosper and be able to feed themselves than see them stumble and fall and not be able to put food on their table and clothe themselves. Mary and I do not live to hurt others, i'm a giver and a lover.. Im the type of guy that wants everyone to be happy and i will give to people to try and help them.. i'm an easy target because i have a big heart. We do not take in alot of people anymore like we used to. The first 5 or 6 years we took in alot of hikers and gave away alot of merchandise and money to help those we thought needed it. Some hikers were awesome and were grateful and went on to finish their journey and some were not and we discovered they were just not good people and had to kick them to the curb. We have watched this trail grow for the last decade and man when 2020 hit is when i saw a huge change out here.. every year it seems to be harder to escape the chaos of the cookie cutter society. People are bringing the city mentailty to the trail systems and man they should be leaving it in the city. They are trying to change what does not need changing. Mary and I mind our own business and work and take care of hikers like we always have. We see the trail as a place for people to come and heal and find their souls. We are not here to single out people or create a group or to be some clique. We are here to help other like minded people achieve their goals to hike the appalachian trail and to experience the real trail vibe where one comes to hike and does not have anything in mind, but to have fun.. the trail is an experience that you will not experinece anywhere else or you can, but the vibe is hard to find.. anyways.. so today we will be take a break and getting some stuff done at the shop and working on getting end of month bills paid up.. got house rent and shop rent, commercial insurance for the shop and shuttle, shop electric and water bill for the shop and the house. Grocery shopping.. we are going to grab some belgian chocolate to make some chocolate gelato. We have been working on some large schedulings and so we have a few groups lined up that will be calling to get locked in for the ride. So when we do large group schedulings it can take up to a month of back and forth communication to get everything set up. We get an idea of what the hiker is looking for and we go over everything they are looking for in their hike. We ask if they are looking for a hostel stay or a hotel stay and we find out how many miles they can hike a day and if a large group we talk about how that usually works and we always make sure we warn everyone that your group is only as fast as the slowest hiker... so do not plan on the strongest hikers time because it can create huge issues when timing gets meseed up cause if the first day time does not work because of a slower hiker the rest of the rides are going to need to be adjusted and that can cause huge issues if we have to move schedulings around and it does happen. I see alot of talk online about shuttles and people always have this vision that all a shuttle driver does is take a call and they just tell us this is where we want to meet and thry scribble it down on s tw***ie wrapper and we are good to go and maybe that works that way with some drivers.. not with us. When we started our show we wanted to be different than what we had experienced out here when it came to being a real shuttle business. We wanted to give hikers a safe ride with drivers that drive the speed limit and drive brand nre cars and to be commercially insured and man the first year we did well and the second year we made a move to expand. See our idea was to start a shuttle business and we would hire hikers getting off trail that needed some time and a job while they transitioned back to cookie cutter society. We would give the hiker a job, a car, insure it, gas it up and let them drive it while they were not working and give them a place to live while they made money with us driving for us and getting themselves ready to inject themselves back into the real world. And man we paid the drivers 70 percent of the pay. The 30 percent we took was to keep the car on the road and pay for gas and insurance, etc. So when year 2 rolled up we hired a dude named tyler who hiked in 2016 and was working up at mtn crossings and so we hired him for the 2018 year. I borrow 5 grand and bought a subaru gt and dumped about twenty grand in parts into her and we ran shuttles. Now mary and i lost a bunch of money that year, but gained lots of experience. So we made it to 2019 and a tree fell on our car and destroyed it and man this happen in march of 2018 and it was full on thru hike season and man we needed the money!! We were only a frw years jnto our business and still building and broke as a joke and doing all we could to stay afloat. So i did not say this part.. when mary and i got off trail we had nothing. We had like 1200 bucks and no car.. just the back packs that we rolled into town with. So we had an idea and the motivation to make it happen. We had no credit either so we were working with what we had and that was what we made hustling our butts off. When the tree fell on the car we were screwed. We did not stop there we went a rented a car and ran that car for two months and saved 6 grand and man i called all the car dealerships and hunted high and low for a place to buy a car and i honestly did noy think we could buy a new car and was looking for used and man i ran into an ad on facebook and it was for a rav 4 at toyota in buford and so i called and made an appointment to go down and look at their vehicles. Well.. let me say that we walked out of that place with a new car and so we returned the enterprise car and continued to move forward. So we after the 2018 dilemma with the second driver we were going to try again, but we needed to get thru the first part of the new hiker season. So we hit mid year 2019 and we have a brand new rav 5th gen the new gen ravs and it was nive it was loaded to the gills and awd with torque vectoring and was vegan leathered out, etc. It was loaded limited and mary had her new office.. so in mid 2019 we would see the hikers we brought to town sitting out on the circle and man it was cold in march and april so we saw this and. Wanted to help out so we went and found a spot to rent intown where hikers could go and drop their backpacks and sit back and be safe and we were not looking for donations or or any money to hang loose.. it was a free spot for us hikers to have a safe spot. So we rented a spot and opened up for people to hangout in 2020 and man we all know what happened in 2020. Sad times, man.. anyways.. so we are working on scheduling a group that will be coming to hike the entire state of georgia and so for the last couple days mary has been working with the group leader and setting up pick up spots and drop off spots and what we charge for each ride, etc, etc.. and so today she will be taking payment and sending over schedules and locking it down. Jordan is back and he will be up at the mtn crossings store today helping out the hikers and tourists that pass thru neel gap. I will be on the phones and taking care of the back ground noise and doing net work... we are going to get some more gelato churning. Yesterday we got two flavors done and they are bangjng.. peach gelato and caramrl gelato. Both are sooooo goooooood... but today i want to do a chocolate gelato. I love making gelato!! Hahhaa.. it is sooo relaxing and rewarding. After all is said and done. Hahaha.. biscuit is going to be cute and sleep and probably need some treats and love.. hehe.. man, i will stop babbling.. lots of memories are really running thru my mind. So much has happened the last few years. I lost my mom and step dad my moms soul mate which a year after art passed my mom passed on and man i lost one. Of my close friends all in like a few years time and man after my mom passed on it is weird, but i felt this loss like my mom and dad are gone and it is just me and my brother that i have not seen since 2012. It is a weird feeling to know i will be passing on too. I have been thinking alot about not seeing my mom before she passed on. Im not sure how to feel.. i just feel kind of lost and sad cause i will never see or talk to her again. All my life i wondered how i would feel when my mom passed on and man it is just hard sometimes. Anyways. I'm gonna get on with my day. I hope everyone is doing awesome. You all Deserve good things in life. Be beautifil and kind to yourselves and to others around you. Spread positive vibes. Negative vibes are lame, boring and exausting. Drama sucks... have a beautiful day. One love peace