Often, when writing a book, an author will have way more material than can go into the book. Some of the material gets pulled for various reasons. After six months of hiking, I had way too many stories to go into Three Hundred Zeroes. Here are some short samples of things that were left out, but had potential to be engaging and funny, had I developed them. See if you have any favorites:

1. I was at the Rock Spring Hut, Virginia, on 12 June, 2008. Enoch, a thru-hiker, had relatives and a niece show up to walk with him for a few days. His cute four year old niece saw me as the “Chosen One,” a character from a fantasy book the family was reading her. Everybody saw that as a good laugh. She stuck to me like glue. She asked her Mom about where all these people that live in the woods go in the winter?

2. Going into my heart surgery, I was
telling the fellow shaving my chest about a friend’s wife coming
out of her surgery. The friend, and his wife, are both big movie fans
and the Godfather is one of their favorites. He can quote every line
in the movie. Coming out of surgery, the first thing she said to her
husband was, “Where’s Michael?” After my heart surgery, when I
was coming to, I asked my nurse, Michelle, “Where’s Michael?” I
must have been still thinking about our earlier conversation, I
wasn’t even aware I did it. Later, she reported back that she
couldn’t find Michael and then I cracked up.

3. At Harpers Ferry, New York Minute
(NYM), a thru-hiker, and I stayed in a nice hotel, a Quality Inn. I
decided I was hungry and went outside, fired up my stove and cooked
some cous cous. When I returned, NYM looked at me really strangely
and asked why I didn’t use the microwave we had in the room. It
never dawned on me! We had been out in the woods so long I had
forgotten about electrical appliances.

4. When I left, Jane gave me a RoadID
to put in my shoe. It is a metal tag that many bicyclists wear in case
they fall off and are unconscious. I checked to see she had it
stamped: “If lost, return to Jane?”

5. At the Abingdon Gap Shelter, just
before Damascus, VA, a group of young people were lamenting the fact
that they had been on the trail all week and hadn’t seen any
wildlife. Standing immediately behind them was a large buck deer
staring at them. All week long they had been tromping through the
woods, making all sorts of noise. Groups never see much wild life.
Here, they were sitting quietly and the deer walked right up behind
them.

6. I had visions of creating a TV
series like Dr. Who called “Hiker Who.” His adventures would
center around going into a privy and “poof,” he would be
transported instantly to another shelter in another time.

7. At the Montebello, VA hostel, I
stayed there for the night. They’ve never had a single bear problem
in all the years they’ve been in business. I got up to pee about 2
am. Something must have awakened me, but I didn’t know what. I
looked out the window and didn’t see anything in the moonlit yard.
The next morning I found out a bear had been down in the parking lot
below my window and had completely emptied the back of their pickup
truck of all it’s trash. They knew it was a bear because the three
empty canisters of whipped cream had all been crushed and the
contents cleaned out.

8. Walking down the trail singing (at
the top of my lungs), “I can’t help falling in love with you,”
an old Elvis hit, I rounded the corner and here is this male hiker
just crawling out of his tent. He’s in his shorts, five o’clock
shadow, hair’s a mess and he stands up, rubs his belly and looks at me like, “you
gotta be kidding, not me fella’?”

9. Half-Elvis, a thru-hiker, found a
National Geographic Map of Texas and hung it in the last shelter in
Pennsylvania, the Kirkridge Shelter. He meticulously drew the A.T.
crossing Texas, including shelter locations and a “You are here X.”
I wonder how many were confused by that?