Date: 2013-02-18
To: Springer Mountain, GA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

I can¢t believe I¢m only a couple of weeks away from hiking the Appalachian Trail. Although I¢ve been consumed with preparing for the adventure I¢ve been dreaming about my whole life, it still seems surreal that it¢s actually happening. Surely I¢ll break an ankle or something. After all the time I¢ve put into hydrating and bagging food, remortgaging my house to buy hiking gear, spending half days hiking instead of painting the porch, and spending way too much time reading trail journals, if I don¢t go I¢ll be relegated to sleeping in the yard anyway, so I may as well go.Until recently, when I was searching for a place to hike nearby, I really didn¢t have any good hiking trails to use even though the area is very rural and heavily wooded.   That is until I found a great set of hiking trails open to the public, owned by the American Chestnut Land Trust. (ACLT) This is an organization that dedicates time and money to creating natural habitats consisting of trees and fauna that are native to Southern Maryland. They plant native trees and bushes to attract native wildlife, and eradicate the non-native species introduced to this area, such as bamboo. Southern Maryland has a lot of wetlands where bamboo thrives.   The bamboo fields here are beautiful, but they take over everything, pushing out native species and draining waterways with their aggressive growth. (Come to think of it I¢m not native to this area, so I hope they don¢t eradicate me.) Anyway, the forest land is open for public use of the trails, which have plenty of hills, perfect for practicing my AT hike and getting in shape.   The Trust is named after the American Chestnut tree. This huge tree once thrived in North American forests, but was almost wiped out when the Chestnut blight was introduced with the Asian Chestnut trees in 1905.   There are only a few groves left, so it¢s up to organizations like the ACLT to try to bring this wonderful tree back to respectable populations. So I¢m trying to get into shape.   While I was working in downtown Washington, D.C., I left the house at 5:15 and didn¢t get home until 7:30 or 8:00, giving me very little time to do anything, including exercise. Even if I had the time, I was always exhausted. About the only exercise I got was taking long walks for during lunch. Though D.C. has a lot to offer in sight seeing, returning in a sweat soaked suit was not real appealing. Once I retired I had all the time I needed. As a young man I was always doing something physical and was usually in good condition. Somewhere along the line I got older and realized it¢s not as easy as it used to be. I used to think how good it felt to have that sore feeling when the muscles are building. Now it just hurts. I can¢t believe how painful and how long it hurts. It¢s not a ¢good¢ feeling anymore, but I know it¢s supposed to be good for me. So I started by walking a mile, then two miles¢¦ and got all the way to eight miles. Hurray! I can now walk as far as I could once run. Then I introduced a non-native species called a backpack, one I¢ve never really used much. Holy crap, Batman. I¢m supposed to carry this over 2,000 miles? Who invented this sport anyway? Once I introduced the backpack, my walking distance went down considerably and it took me another month to get back to where I was at eight miles. I know I¢m supposed to be able to walk twenty miles or more once I get my ¢hiking legs¢ under me, but it's hard to imagine at this point. They say the tough part is "mental". As long as my head isn't sore, I think I can handle the mental part. How in the heck do these guys do this in their 70¢s or even 80¢s? I think they must be on Geritol steroids.   I guess I'll have to walk the walk and see for myself. My goal was to get up to fifteen miles with full gear, but I won¢t make that in two weeks, so I¢ll depend on getting to that distance on the trail. It takes so long to walk that far anyway, I may as well be on the trail if I¢m going to hike all day. I figure getting up to ten or twelve miles will allow me to keep up with the seventy year olds, the same guys I sit with on benches at the Mall. We have a club. It¢s the ¢I can¢t think of anything I¢d rather not be doing¢ club. The women shop and the club members sit on a bench. Does the Appalachian Trail have benches?