As promised, here is part one (of five) of the walkthrough of the patches on my backpack. Feel free to ignore these posts if you find them a little too self-indulgent - they are really more for me than for anyone else. :)
A: The first patch ever applied to this backpack, when I left home to go to college. I can't remember where it came from, or why I picked Underdog. But hey - it's Underdog! What's not to like?
B: I picked up this patch when visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with Lori. We had been married less than a year, and we were moving from New Hampshire to Texas. Instead of just racing down there on boring interstates, we decided to make a roadtrip out of it. This was one of our favorite places that we visited along the way. Lori climbed to the top of the observation tower on Clingman's Dome (my vertigo kept me from following), and it was this park (and Shenandoah in Virginia) that really turned me on to the awesomeness of road-tripping in general.
C: Greenleaf Hut is one of the AMC high huts in the White Mountain National Forest. Greenleaf is on the slopes of Mt. Lafayette in Franconia Notch. I visited this hut on the third day of a backpacking trip through the Pemigawasset Wilderness. I'd like to eventually visit each of the high huts - I am currently at five out of eight. I still need to get to Lakes of the Clouds, Madison Spring, and Lonesome Lake.
D: Clingman's Dome was the mountain I mentioned earlier, in the Great Smoky Mountain National Forest.
E: This is a button of a favorite shirt of mine from high school. I found it again last year while cleaning out some boxes in the attic. It was mixed with a bunch of other old keepsakes, some of which I can't remember why I saved.