Date: 2007-09-16
To: How did we get here?
Miles today: 0.0

How did we get here? Here¢s the story¢¦We moved to Maryland in 1999 and one of the first people we met was Tracy. Tracy was a Marine also and Greg sought her out at work to get the beta on local climbing spots. From there a wonderful friendship began. After a couple years Tracy came up with this wild idea that we should take a group of ladies from our church on a backpacking trip of the AT through Maryland. I said she was crazy¢¦ these are young women who don¢t do any outdoors stuff¢¦ they have small children¢¦ their husbands would never agree to it.   But not to be deterred by my pessimism, Tracy persisted and found that the women loved the idea. And our hiking group Hikerchiks was born.Over the years we have hike the Maryland portion of the trail twice, southern Pennsylvania, Central Shenandoah, Virginia¢s rollercoaster, West Virginia, a section of Connecticut and part of the Smokies. We started as one group hiking together, but soon grew too big and split into smaller groups. This year a group of us flew out to Idaho to hike the Toxaway loop of the Sawtooth Mountains. That was awesome! And now, five of us plan to start a thru hike on March 30, 2008. ¢¦with lots of backup support promised along the way by other Hikerchiks, family and friends. Who are we? First, there is me, Tammy. It¢s very possible I may be the weak link on our team. I¢m a slow hiker, but I eventually get there. I am the organizer of the group. I¢m great at thinking through the details, packing the repair kit, med kit and keeper of the maps. I love maps. I also love to cook. At the beginning of our adventures together Tracy claimed that all you really needed was instant oatmeal for breakfast, a power bar for lunch and ramen noodles for dinner. Yuck! Over the years I¢ve researched and experimented with dehydrating meals and have convinced her that you can eat well on the trail. My favorite cookbook right now is The Backpack Gourmet by Linda Frederick Yaffe. Ultimately however, my real reason for being on this adventure is my daughter Lydia.On our first hike of Maryland back in 2002 I decided to take along my eleven-year-old daughter, Lydia. I was concerned that first year. I have a page in my sketchbook where I had drawn Lydia and written some notes next to it about how I wasn¢t sure she was strong enough to do this hike. ¢¦What a joke! She ran circles around us. Still does. Somewhere along the line, maybe it was the third year in the Shenandoah, Lydia announced that she wanted to do a thru hike of the AT before she finished high school. I didn¢t really pay attention at first. High School seemed so far off at the time. But as the stubborn little bulldog she is, Lydia did not let go of the idea. A couple of years ago, I realized if her dream were going to come true we would have to start taking it seriously. Since we had always home schooled, school wasn¢t really a big deal. We just had to arrange the courses she studied around the trail schedule. She¢ll also ¢do school¢ on the trail. Maybe I¢ll go into more detail on that in a later prep entry. We determined that the best time would be during the spring of her junior year and the fall of her senior. That meant starting in the spring of 08.