Monday, March 31, 2008

I Can't Believe that I'm Doing This!

In less than 24 hours, I will be completely free of my burden of work. I have to go to Heather the Rule Maker's sister's wedding in Vegas this weekend. It will be nice to finally meet her sister. I think we might even get to meet some of the members of the Black Eyed Peas at the wedding. Although, I hear that Fergie is too big to have anything to do with the other group members anymore. While I have no great desire to see Vegas, it will be interesting. We are talking about possibly going to Death Valley or the Grand Canyon while we are there. Then, I'm off to the trail.

I've been thinking about doing the trail since at least 2003, when I started reading about ultra light weight backpacking. I started calculating the weight of everything I would need and thinking of logistics. The idea of doing the trail became more and more intense over the last few years until about a year ago when I knew I had to try it. I was originally going to do the trail in 2007, but Ben said that he wanted to go. Ben could not go until this year, but he joined the Peace Corp instead of doing the trail so I will do the trail alone.

The whole idea of doing the trail seems so overwhelming. I have no idea if I can do this thing. All I know is that I really want to try it to know what it's like. I would very much like to make it all the way to Mount Katahdin, but I'm under no illusions that I can or will make it. Anything can happen in the 2175 miles between Spring Mountain and Mount Katahdin. I'm just going to try to focus on making it day to day, and if I can somehow make it all the way to Katahdin, that would be great. If I do not make, I want to make sure I enjoy every moment on the trail because the chance to do it again may not happen.

2 comments:

Ben said...

thanks Joe....sorry it didn't work out that I could go. Hope you have a good journey and keep in touch along the way. Take care.

Fred said...

Best of luck. Contact me if you need anything and I can ship it out.