Date: 2003-02-21
To: holy how many days to go?
Miles today: 0.0

I'm down to 6 days until I pack myself up and head down to Georgia. The quick itinerary is to leave on the 27th, with my parents, drive as far as we can go that night, stay in a motel in Virginia and drive the rest of the way to Amicalola state park in GA. There will be our room at the lodge waiting for us. We can eat dinner at the lodge, at which point i'll spend the rest of the evening jittery, comtemplating my adventure, from the base of springer Mt. Saturday morning we'll drive up to USFS 42 road and hike the .9 miles back to Springer, take the pics, sign the register and walk northward. I'll drop my parents back at the lot and head for Maine.    I've got so much to do. Still have to buy or make a silk sleeping bag liner. Must fill my mail/food drops and fill them with the proper supplies. I posted my list of 8 drops on the site, so you can send me mail or packages if your heart desires :) I may add a couple drops since I overbought on food, so keep a look out for changes in my schedule.   I must say I expected to be crap-my-pants nervous by this satge in the game, but I'm not one bit. I don't know if this is good or not. I'm feeling the exact opposite if anything. Confident, ready, excited and proud.    I know its my time, and it feels right. Everything has felt right. Taking a semester off, leaving my friends in vermont, its all seemed right. I haven't regretted a bit. I need to do this, I need to be out on my own. True there are hoards of others starting on 3/1, but I mean without people I know. One of the reasons the AT has always been so appealing to me is for this reason. I want to rely on myself, to think for myself and to be able to fix and handle problems when they arise.    In many ways, I have no idea why I'm doing this. Its been an inexplainable fixation i've had since i found out about the AT. I want to walk to find out who I am. I'm tired of sitting on the fence when it comes to so many topics and issues. I know I'm my own person, but I want to develop that person and learn more about him.       I'm tired of wasting time in school. I'm not ready yet to spend the next 2 1/2 years in the classroom. Don't get me wrong, I really like school. I've had classes I've adored, people I love and a perfect college town. But its all there. Its routine and its easy and everyone else does it. College to me seems like a 4 year time when you really don't have to make major decisions besides picking classes. I want to learn on my own. I want to experience things that no book can show me or tell me how to feel.    I'm tired of being lazy and having things come easy. I wanna work for something I can REALLY appreciate. It feels OK to look back after a semester of hard work and feel satisfied, but it feels better to do everything yourself. To know that your own 2 feet got you from this mornings location to tonights. That the food you cooked was yours. You filtered your water, you pitched your tent, you found your water. This is what i want, not to sit in front of a computer screen in my dorm room.      It really feels like the right time. This pending war makes me sick. I am depressed by the losers who are running both the city (new york) and our country. I'm sorry if you don't agree but this is my journal. IMO, Bush got us into this mess, but hes not gonna get us out of it. So many citizens will die both Iraqi and American. So much of todays current events depresses me. I hate SUV's and the materialism in our country. I understand the point of SUV's, but they are not to be rolled down Broadway in NY for show. I just don't get how people don't care about the lives of their children or grandchildren. Some people can't put 2 and 2 together-that their own selfishness will translate to the next generation not having enough gas. The resources on this planet are not infinite, there is a limit, but not to our madness I guess.   Its come to a point where I need to get away from this all. I just can't bare to see the news everyday as we approach closer to war. It'll be weird I guess to be seperated and cut off from it all, but very theraputic. Put it this way, if we had a draft, I'd burn my draft card :)   Sorry if this seems like a lot of ranting and unrelated raving, but its just the things popping into my head. Maybe sometime I'll address the issue of cellphone use on the trail :)