Get Ready...

This week has been crazy busy. I am trying to round up the last of my stuff for the trail and now I need to plan the first 10 days of food and reserve my campsite and get some much needed beta on the Knife Edge and whether or not I should try and do that while I am at Baxter. I also need to find a camera quick and get a picture site set up.

This past Tuesday, the 26th, was my birthday (not the 29th like my Facebook profile said - Kelly changed that a while ago as a joke on me and I never changed it back; also note my birth year is 1972 - I ain't that old. O well I don't really keep track of everyones birthdays either.) and I also had LASIK surgery on Tuesday. That got rid of needing to take glasses and my daily contacts and organize those mail drops with all the associated paraphernalia. I was a little worried after the surgery about the results on Tuesday because my eyes were really hurting and I couldn't open them to see, but after taking some meds to help me sleep, I woke up at dinner time feeling a lot better and able to clearly see with out any glasses or contacts for the first time in my memory. My surgeon told me on Wednesday that I had way better results than he expected, and on Wednesday morning I could already see 20/20. I think it would be ironic that I spent so much of my life not being able to see anything clearly and then now have better then perfect vision - but I won't complain about 20/20.

My Grandparents came to visit and they got to meet Kelly. Everybody had fun and it has been great getting to see family - the Blitch family also came to visit over Memorial Day weekend and we all got to go see the White Squirrel Festival in Brevard.

That's kind of it for now.

Happy trails!

On your mark

So this is one of the first crucial steps to starting my hike. I hope I can keep everybody up to date on my progress. My mom has agreed to type up my trail journals when I send them home. She doesn't know it yet, but she's about to enter the "blogoshpere" - lame, I can't believe I have joined the ranks of internet bloggers. Oh well, we all have our faults - thank God it's not Twitter. I hope a combination of posting pictures and reading my journals will help give everybody an idea of what it's like on the trail. I also hope I make it the whole way. I've got my gear and plane ticket ready to go. LASIK surgery is on Tuesday, then 2 weeks later I am off. I'm a little anxious.

For those of you who don't know, I have wanted to thru hike the AT since I first learned about the AT and the fact you could walk the entire way. I was 10 or 11 and we were getting ready to go on a backpacking trip with my Boy Scout troop. Years later, when I got to Virginia Tech, I saw a thru hiker (trail name: Cucumber Boy) give a presentation on her hike at an Outdoor Club meeting. That is the moment it hit me that after graduation would be the time to do it. A life time of dreaming and three years of planning have gotten me this far. i have had a lot of encouragement from people about this hike. Whether they knew it or not, my parents were the catalyst for this journey because they introduced my brothers and I to the outdoors pretty much from birth. The other big source of encouragement is Kelly Wilson. She has spent countless hours planning out a diet to help me through this hike. She has been incredibly supportive and even threatened to break up with me if I didn't do the hike or finish it. I will carry my parents and Kelly in spirit as I hike, and hopefully, they will join me at some point - among many others.

I think that is enough for now. I'll post a few more times before I leave and maybe have a few chances along the way.

Happy Trails