Date: 2005-08-15
To: Planning 101 (Greg)
Miles today: 0.0

First, let me say thanks to all who made it to our ¢going out¢ party. It was also a hat party but some were caught unprepared. No worries as Kathy and I will be having another bash this winter I¢m sure. We have started getting things together for the trek. As you can imagine there is lots to do and time flies. Some things we have to consider:What about food? Good question with a lot of answers. We will be coming to some sort of town about once a week to take showers, do laundry, fill up on real food and to reprovision. Kathy¢s sister Carolyn and husband Calvin have agreed to help us with the 20 or so mail drops. These drops will consist of 5 or 6 days worth of food which we will prepare ahead of time (more on that in a bit) as well as additional spices, toilet paper and any gear that needs to be replaced or swapped out.For example, our start date is March 20. Georgia that time of year one can expect temperatures in the sixties during the day and the thirties at night. So we¢ll be carrying and wearing warm clothing and sleeping bags. As we move into summer we will want to shed the extra layers for a few more t-shirts and maybe the lighter sleeping bags.We don¢t quite know what to do with the house as of yet. A couple we know living on Kent Island are looking into renting from us while their house is being remodeled. Otherwise if anyone wants to consider one of those extreme makeovers while we are away, have at it! Then there¢s the bills. We¢ll cancel the registration on the vehicles along with insurance. We will probably sell Kathy¢s truck while we're away and get a new one when we return. Hopefully by the time we return to civilization gas prices will have abated somewhat. Our phone number will remain in service along with voicemail. If anyone needs to contact us they can leave a message. We should be able to check that on a weekly basis. The same for email with some exceptions. We wont be carrying any cell phones, Blackberry, or anything like that, so the only way for us to retrieve email would be a library or some kind of cyber caf©. They seem to be getting rather popular along the AT from what I have read. In an attempt to minimize spamming we will probably create a new email address. Once we know what it is we will let you know.Medium-Steve (most of you know ¢Big-Steve") tells me it¢s cheaper to leave your utilities on for 6 months than pay to have things turned off and then turned back on.So far our biggest chore will be food preparation. We are anticipating a 3000 to 4000 calorie diet proportioned out into fats, protein and carbs. That diet will change as the weather gets warmer and our bodies have lost a lot of residual fat. Most of the freeze-dried meals sold today are surprisingly tasty, and they do fill you up. The downside is they are a little expensive. And I would eventually get sick of the same old slop week-in and week-out. We will include one de-hy dinner in each mail drop just to even things up. The rest of the food we will be packing will be coming from a book we found that is written specifically for this purpose. So we have quite a bit of fruits, nuts ,GORP, meats and veggies to dry and prepare between now and March. All this stuff will be dried mixed and staged with other ingredients, then vacuum sealed and frozen in grocery bags labeled with its assigned mail drop. As I said we will only be packing 4 to 6 days worth of food in these drops. The rest we will buy along the way. How much vodka should we bring? Kathy and I like to have a little cocktail at the end of the day. This is usually mixed with Crystal lite or Gatorade. A half liter per mail drop should do. Maybe a couple 16oz beers thrown in for good measure.So we¢re on our way. It feels as though the adventure has already begun. I realize there is still much to do, and yet summer is still in full swing. We have lots of weekend backpacking/car-camping trips scheduled in the months ahead. I hope you can find a little time to come outside with us on some of them. I hope this web site is able to give you an idea what we are up to in the months ahead. Once we leave my father will be receiving photos as well as journal entries that we hope to upload on a regular basis. G.