Date: 2014-02-20
To: Preparing my Trail Hair!
Miles today: 0.0

I had a "good hair day" on my wedding day, thankfully, but it doesn't happen all the time. I don't like fussing with my hair, which is good for the trail, but it's thin and straight which usually needs accutrements to keep it out of my eyes and face. So, my hair is a trail preperation concern. What will I need to maintain the locks!With my thin, straight hair, I morphed my look through the different eras - long & straight in the late 60's and early 70's, short, frizzy perms in the late 70's and early 80's, big, bouncy waves to the early 90's. With motherhood came the "I don't have time or money to get perms" attitude, and I kept it in a braid in the back. I liked that; it felt like the 60's again, until I broke my right wrist in 2006. Marty, my husband, couldn't help with the braid thing, so off to "Big Michael's" I went."Big Michael" is Michael Lerch, owner of Salon 360 in Olympia, Washington. He had been doing my hair since about 1991. When my son Michael needed his first hair cut, I just took him to "Big Michael"!My wrist healed, and I could manage my hair once again. I let it grow a bit but realized it would never be the hair of my youth, so I occasionally got it trimmed up.Fast forward to about 2008. My Michael was getting tired of having me cut his hair. (I'd been cutting Marty's almost since we started dating - I'd cut his hair and he'd take me out to dinner!) Sunrise Hair Salon is right acrosss the street from Griffin School, where I was teaching and Michael was attending. We'd make an appointment for after school, he'd walk to the shop, then come back to my room. That worked out so well that I decided to start going there and have Brooke manage my locks. (Sorry "Big Michael", you did a great job, but convenience works.) By now, Brooke had fashioned Michael's hair into a mullet at the end of 10th grade and a spiked strip down the middle of his head at the end of 11th grade (2011), merely for effect at school and Scouts! Brook tells the story of the first time she got to work on Michael's hair. He walked in, handed her a DVD case of the MacGyver TV show, and told her he wanted that hair cut! After a couple weeks for effect, he got the party-in-the-back hair cut off.Brooke had heard of Michael's adventures and now was hearing of our future adventure on the AT. For about a year and a half, whenever I'd go in, we'd talk about my "hair needs" for hiking: short enough that I don't have to pull it back, it has to stay out of my face, and I want a little fullness. A tall order with my thin, limpy hair!My hair appointment in November 2013 was a precursor to whatever cut I'd eventually get. Short, but not real short, being the winter, and we discussed ideas - I was thinking short and shaggy, and Brooke suggested a Pixey-like cut, that by the end of the hike, it will be grown out!I went in for THE CUT on Friday, 14 February. I told Brooke what I was thinking and that I'd make an appointment just before we leave to get it trimmed up for whatever doesn't work.This is a great little cut, but it does still need some attention. I'll have Brook do some cutting on the top layers around my face to keep tuffs of hair from annoying me! At this point, I don't think I'll care if the hair is so short on top that it sticks up. It may be JUST right in 6 months!Thanks, Brooke and Sunrise Hair Salon, for working so well for us AND with us (although Michael hasn't been in for a haircut since his 2011 cut!) And Thank you to Salon 360 and Michael Lerch for all the years you cut and even permed my hair to help me have "good hair days"!Who would have thought that "hair" would be worthy of a trail prep entry, but it IS something to consider!Marilyn, Mother of: