I take at face value that he wanted to get away from all the crappola and went hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Of course, if he was going to do it, he should have transferred the gavel to the next in line. My sense is that is the source of the LTG's unhappiness: he didn't get to be Governor for the days of absence.

"The white men were as thick and numerous and aimless as grasshoppers, moving always in a hurry but never seeming to get to whatever place it was they were going to." Dee Brown