Date: 2004-02-04
To: Trail Mix
Miles today: 0.0

Gear problems: A test-loading showed my Golite Trek backpack couldn't hold the gear I'll use on the first leg of the hike. But an Osprey Aether 90 swallowed everything and fits like a glove. So what if it weighs almost three pounds more? I need comfort if I'm to lug much over 30 pounds. Once into Virginia, I can ship it and my winter-weight sleeping bag and clothing home and start usimg the Trek pack and summer gear. That should drop me into the mid-20's for total weight. Good news: word came from the secretive Kurt Russell that a Nomad 2-4-2 tent is finally heading my way. Yessss! Anyone who ordered stuff from Wanderlust months back, don't give up! Mine was ordered last September The cellar den is strewn with gear under inspection or repair. It's off limits to visitors and my wife avoids it anyway.¢HTML: Friend or Foe?¢ Didn't plan on having to learn about HTML tags to make journal entries look right. A WYSIWYG feature would be welcome here. I ordered up a Pocketmail unit, to try to get my entries down "just so" before zapping it to my wife for posting here. She'll also have the tedious chore of uploading trail photos off chips I mail home, and titleing them. Now if I can only learn all these routines well enough to show her. The Mars landers have it easy: just look around the place and send back data, then let a roomful of scientists figure out what to do with it all.Stress on Parade: Waking in the wee hours lately, with so many unresolved issues and "do-lists" whirling around in my head. Not to say assessing the consequences of this adventure. There is just no convenient gap to fit this journey into such as: between jobs, after retirement, between marriages, or involvement in some major life crisis. So six months' absence WILL impact my job and marriage and savings account, but in ways I can't foresee. Hope I can pick up all the pieces.I'll miss a lot of music opportunities with the Bangor Symphony and elsewhere. But I¢ll have what¢s in my head and what comes in over my FM/weather radio for company. Plus I may get lucky and walk into a Bluegrass festival! Unlike Tuba Man who thruhiked with his instrument in 2000, the bass fiddle stays home. Which gets back to another of the many Reasons for making this trip: seeking more unforgettable moments like ones I've known: the runner's high, the musical moments when the hair on your neck stands up, saltwater sailing with the wind and sun, on a reach with the sails set just right, or some incredible vista from a mountain top or along the trail. No, I don't need to experience hurtling earthwards on a bungee cord, or jumping out of a plane trusting your chute will open, or rock-hopping downhill on a trail bike, or other extreme sports. To each his own, HYOH, etc. The best depiction I have of such moments is in a close-up picture we took of one of our kids at age 2 as he clung to the steering wheel on a little circular car-ride at the local State Fair. Laughing ear to ear, head thrown back, eyes shut, he was the picture of pure joy. "We are young but once, but can remain immature forever." In pursuit of dreams like this one, the above statement comes to mind. To me it means not "immature-stupid", but "immature-capable of fully savoring the moment as a kid would". Mindless hedonism, some might say. My wife persuaded me to drop the slogan from my journal signature, because many readers would give it the first definition (which may actually be the correct one!). Can't wait for April 4. All these vapors will clear with that first step northward. Enough navel-gazing! Back to work! Seal those tent seams!