Date: 2005-10-07
To: Post trail update
Miles today: 0.0

I can't believe it has been 1 month since we finished. Time has flown by. We miss the trail and our trail friends dearly. I check trail journals all the time to get updates, see new pictures, and reconnect with the trail. I don't miss having to hike every day. It is nice to relax in bed each morning. Yummy coffee in bed, a luxary!!Bootz and I are doing well and we've managed to stay pretty busy. Life after the trail is overwhelming at times. There is so much going on and we no longer have the simplicity of focusing on hiking each day. We're trying our best to keep our lives simple although we have cell phones again and high speed internet! We moved to Salisbury, NC when we returned. This is Bootz' hometown. We are living in a 1 bedroom apt that is attached to Bootz grandmother's house. It is great! We got new carpet and moved most of our furniture in. We stored our things in her basement it made things convenient. It took us awhile to get things settled. We were amazed at how much stuff we had. I think I almost fainted the first time we started to dig through things. All I wanted was my running shoes! We didn't think about what we'd need first when we moved things. So I had no idea where many things we wanted were located. We dug and dug, no shoes....it took me 3 days to find them. They were of course way in the back in a closet on the bottom of a huge stack. Figures..and guess what? They didn't even fit once I found them!! My feet grew on the trail. It felt like I was putting on kids shoes. Well, I ended up going to buy a new pair. We've moved some clothes upstairs but we also donated a lot of things. Do we really need 16 pairs of underwear? or 35 t-shirts? The list goes on and on but one thing we know for sure is that the trail taught us how to conserve. So we donated a lot of stuff and haven't even felt a slightest urge to purchase anything new. Liberating is the best word I can think of right now!I contantly encounter things that cause me to say to myself, "Do I really need that? the answer is usally - No! All I can say is that we feel blessed by all that we have and we need nothing more. As for jobs...we don't have regular jobs and hope not to anytime soon. We are working on renovating an historic downtown propery in Salisbury. Check it out at www.128innes.urbandriftwood.com Eventually we'll get more pictures on the website. The plan is to rehabilitate the storefront so that it looks like it did when the building was built. Then we'll have either one or 2 commerical spaces on the main floor. Upstairs we'll build 3 residential condo's. We've mostly spent the past few weeks cleaning the place. The roof leaked really badly for many years and distroyed much of what was inside. Bootz and some others removed 8 large dumpsters of trash before we left for the trail and we've filled another one since we've been back. But is looking better. I'm heading up the rehabilitation tax credit application process. Lots to learn but I love it!We are also picking up work at family businesses when we can. That helps us to make some money. Eventually the building will create some cash flow. We're so used to living on a tight budget that it hasn't been too bad. But we do worry about money and we know that we need to make money. It's just that we don't need as much as some other people may need. I'm heading to NY soon to help my Dad out. He is having prostate cancer surgery and needs some TLC. I found out about his cancer when I was in Gorham, NH. It was a shock at first but we're taking things in stride and I am very postive about his upcoming surgery. Bootz will be heading to FL at the same time to work for his Dad. Some construction work on a building in the Keys. There is an article coming out in our local paper this weekend about our AT experience. You can view it online at www.salisburypost.com Click on the Lifestyles tab. It should be in the Sunday 10/9 and Monday 10/10 editions.A big hello to all that we hiked with! We miss you!! I'll keep you posted from time to time.