Date: 2009-03-29
To: Ready to Run
Miles today: 0.0

Hello everyone. I am happy to report that my thru-hike campaign has come a long, long way in the last month. A pretty unbelievable amount of time has been spent giving attention to the smallest of details to make this trip as organized, comfortable, and as safe as possible. My 'waypoint schedule' has been set, the maildrops complete and handed off, tickets bought, shuttles arranged, on leave from work, apartment moved, bills setup for autopay, equipment packed, the crew given (detailed)instructions, etc.The schedule from now until Springer is a pretty easy one: Having left Harrisburg this morning, I will spend the night visiting with family in Baltimore and then leave for Norfolk tomorrow morning. After one night in Norfolk, I will be on a bus for Gainesville GA. Wes Wisson will be picking me up from the Gainesville bus station on Wednesday morning and taking me to Amicalola State Park. I am waiting to see how I feel at that point, having been on a bus for fifteen hours. I may hike the Approach Trail that afternoon and I may just crash there in the shelter for the night and get a strong start the next day.I am amazed by how eerie this post-planning, pre-hiking time is. The silence in my brain is the most remarkable- there are no more endless task lists, things to buy, people to explain things to. There is just the fact that it's all done now I get to spend all of my time thinking about the walk. I am so thankful to finally be at this point.Planning this hike was not as enjoyable as I thought it would be. Moving to PA in the fall, walking everyday, finding the right equipment- these were all very enjoyable. However, on paper, the sheer size of this project made it very difficult and often overwhelming to plan. For instance, my 'waypoint schedule' is basically an itinerary of places that I will walk through on the hike, broken down into 38 sections, with general time estimates assigned. This project alone took much more than a week of 3-4 hours a day cross referencing resources to figure out the best plans for sections and resupplies. Next,the maildrops were pretty crazy to put together. After having the waypoint schedule together, it was easy to see how many days I needed to buy food for in the maildrops. But then when you figure you need sixty "Knorr sides plus Veggies" pouches and Walmart has the best price, you can't just go there and buy sixty of them as there's not that many of them on the shelf. In most of the cases of my frustration, more time would have been helpful and I learned a good lesson.Even though this planning was difficult, the result is that I feel super organized and this ultimately translates into a foundational feeling of safety. Having a good itinerary with time approximations allows my crew who are following me to know where I' supposed to be and when. For a vessel at sea, this is called a Float Plan, and they are measures of utmost importance. The people following me know not to call the police if I am a day overdue at a destination, but if they haven't heard from me for a few days, they will know to be concerned. Another area of safety and comfort that I am proud to have spent alot of time working out is my pack weight. It weighs 36.5lbs with 7 days of food and fully watered(3L). I am happy with this figure and have since allowed myself to carry both dental floss and protien powder for everyday. I will be so spoiled!This will be my last "prep" journal. While under way, I will be attempting to send a position report and a picture home via text message to be posted on this site once a day if there is phone service. Also, each day I will be writing journals by hand and then sending them home from post offices along the way to be transcribed onto the journal site by my mother. In some situations, she may feel it is necessary to post her own notes or correspondances.this morning, I stepped out of a vacant apartment that used to be my home into a world of unknown. Taking such steps has never been easy for me but I force myself to do it because I am fascinated by the things that I learn about myself and the world when I am in unfamiliar situations. Thank you to everyone for your great support so far which has certainly make taking these steps much less difficult.