9-9-12
Jim is driving us back to Connecticut (thank you!) and it will take eight or nine hours to get there. It took me nine weeks to hike the exact same distance. What's the point of me walking this? Not efficiency, obviously. Our culture lacks a hero's quest, or a coming of age quest, or a pilgrimage, but we Americans need it, just like all cultures do in some form our another. I needed this experience. It has definitely been a life changing experience so far and I'm very glad that it's not over. I'm not ready to leave the woods yet.
Town visits are stressful. How will I re-integrate back into the "real" world? I have no idea. I have no job, no money, and no idea what I'm going to do with my life after this, but my life seems promising anyhow, and I don't have to figure it out quite yet. Thank goodness. I just have to figure out how to get my next resupply done, and where to sleep and how many miles I can walk and where to get water. But also, I'm proud. I walked all of that and more. I've somehow hiked over 1300 miles and I'm going to walk 2,184 miles by the time I'm done. It has been very hard, but mostly you just have to get up every day and keep walking. Follow the next white blaze. Keep breathing. Keep moving forward. That is my job right now.
I am sore and bruised all over from Mt. Katahdin. That mountain beat me up! Tonight at Toe Knee's house we looked at some of her pictures from this hike. Wow, we all have lost weight and it seems so long ago that I was back in Georgia. We put Storage Wars (one of my guilty pleasures) on the tv in the background and ate cheese, crackers and vienna sausages while I over indulged and drank three cold root beers. I opened a care package with treats and cards from friends and former coworkers. That really made me happy, just to know that people still care, even though I'm out here doing this crazy thing and I've been doing it for almost five months. Thanks guys!
Lightheart Gear is awesome! Based on one desperate email I was able to send from the Hundred Mile Wilderness, Judy had a loaner tent waiting for me at Toe Knee's house. I shipped my tent back to get the zippers fixed, so I'm covered until my own tent gets back to me. Thank you, Judy!