That should be one step ahead of the really hot weather and the most irksome of the insects. He goes to a local outfitter and buys enough equipment to bring full employment to a valley full of sherpas.
Mr. Bryson starts having nightmares about being alone in his tent with bears foraging around his campsite. He also worries about what he would do if he hurt himself on the trail or had a medical emergency. At Christmas time he put notes in all his cards asking people to go with him but, of course, he gets no replies. One day, in late February, he gets a call from an old school friend, Stephen Katz. Katz was Bill's travelling companion around Europe twenty five years earlier. Katz asked if he could go along with him on his Appalachian Trail adventure and Bill said "sure!". Later, Bill remembered that when Katz returned home from Europe he had gotten heavily involved with drugs and alcohol and even went to prison for eighteen months. Bill also thought back to some of the arguments from their youth and he began to wonder if maybe he had made a mistake inviting him along. Bill had even more doubts when they picked Katz up at the airport. He had two bags full of snickers bars and announced that due to a run in ten years earlier with some contaminated phenylthiamines he had to eat something every hour or so or have seizures.
The next day they went to the supermarket to buy provisions. Katz loaded up the cart with more than they could ever carry, including the full range of Little Debbie cakes. They spent the night packing but had to leave a lot of things behind that would not fit. The next day, Bill's wife drove them to the airport in Manchester to catch a plane to Georgia. The man at the check-in desk noticed their tickets and hiking equipment and told them a story about vicious wolf attacks in Georgia and also the weather prediction in Atlanta to be below zero degrees for the next three or four days! Our two hardy range rovers get on the plane anyway.
