On a down note, our friend John Adelsberger (III) passed away this past week. He decided to hike the Ozark Mountain Trail through part of Arkansas, and apparently met some misfortune there which has yet to be fully revealed. John was a friend of mine since I got out of college, part of the group of us that got together to play various rpgs and other games on random weekend evenings. In the past couple of years several of us had begun hiking and camping again, and we went on several short hikes with him among other friends. With all of my time consumed with sweeping Tammy off her feet, I didn't join in the full scale multi-day backpacking level of hiking which some of the group took up over the past year, but I did still go meet them and hike along for some conditioning day hikes they did at Castlewood. There were some other places we went too, like the day hike at Shaw Nature Reserve (very nice place... see picture).
There was also the horrible "Day of the Ticks" at Howell Island (sort of a brush mowed path on an island better for deer hunting than hiking). I think I counted 35 ticks on me alone in only 3 or 4 hours of total walking around this island. Through a method we developed of stopping every 5 minutes to spend 2 minutes pulling off ticks, we managed to make it through with, I think, me getting only one actual tick bite, and John might have had one or two, and I'm not sure if any bit into Peter...
Anyway, we had many adventures, both fictional and real, and the discussions we had ranged across such topics as computers, politics, games, work, and women... to only name a few. He had tons of great jokes, and many witty moments. As I have already written elsewhere, his wit, and tremendous presence will be greatly missed at our table.
-Josh
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