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Let me begin with a word or two of explaination. I did not at first plan on posting my Journal enteries here on Trail Journals. Like many other hikers I have kept a personal handwritten journal during my hike on the AT. I have used the journal to record the impressions that I had of the hike, and my personal feelings and emotions during the journey. I have decieded to post the journal enteries here in hopes that they will offer encouragement and insight to other hikers and especialy to other potential hikers, and frankly because Jan Liteshoe also suggested it to me when I met her, by pure chance, on the trail in '04I am a 59 yo retired Trauma Surgeon. I was born and raised in Ireland, and went to Medical School there. Because of my interest in Trauma- gun shots, stabbings, personal assaults, and the like - I came to the USA and worked as a Trauma Surgeon at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, for almost 30 years.I retired at the end of December 2002, and started on the AT at Springer on March 15th 2003. As you will see from my journal, I did not get very far that first year, and returned this year {04}, to continue with my journey.I am currently [May 2004] back home in Oak Park Illinois to attend my daughters college graduation. My eldest brother has also recently died and I will be returning to Ireland for a memorial service after the graduation. I plan on returning to the trail after that. I suspect that I will be back hiking in early June, so I will have lost a full month of hiking. I am not sure if I will be able to complete the journey this year and I know that I should consider flip-floping. I dont want to do that because I want to end the journey at Katahdin. Why? I dont know, but I know that that is how I want this journey to end. Most people who hike the trail have tried at some time or another to try to rationaly explain why they are undertaking this journey. When you examine their reasons closely howver, I believe that they all fail to answer the question. In my own case, for example, I respond that when I discovered that there was a continous trail of over 2000 miles, that could be hiked without interuption, I said to myself "One day I am going to do that". So I belong to the group that claims that we are doing it "because it is there, and because we can" Most people however when told of the existance of the trail show polite interest or even some amazement, but certainly do not express any desire to hike the entire 2000 miles. Why is it that some of us react differently and have this compelling urge to hike the entire distance? At some very fundamental level I suspect that we dont know why we do it ourselves. In fact ,in many ways we are hiking the trail to find out why we are hiking the trail.I will not be able to update this journal very often, and when I do I will be making a large number of enteries, so if you want to follow along, by all means be my guest, but be aware that there will be long periods of silence twixt the enteries.Ther is an old expression in Irish Gaelic that says "Go neiri an bothar leat" This is generaly translated as "May the road rise to meet you". The word "Eiri" although it does mean "Rise" also means "Success"., and the word "Bothar"         which means "Road" also means "Journey". A more rational and meaningfull rendition of the phrase therefore is "May your journey be successfull". I wish this to all who hike, or who someday hope to hike , this trail.