A couple of years ago while we were on holiday in San Antonio, Matthew read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. He really enjoyed it, so Stephanie and I read it and then Matthew and I half-heartedly made plans to "do that some day". It was the kind of statement you make while lying on a beach chair in the sun reading, while wistfully thinking about how cool that would be. Hmmmm... Amazingly, that day will arrive on March 27, 2013. Now, I realize that this is the kind of "some day" that most people will never have the luxury to find. I am (we are) incredibly lucky to have a chance to do this. Our benefactor - my generous wife Stephanie, is supporting us on this journey. She's staying home with Samantha and working, while Matthew and I wander in the woods for half a year. I am the luckiest guy alive and am continually amazed that she puts up with me. Her only condition: If we start it, we have to finish it - all 2160-ish miles of it. I owe her the world.


We're committed. We have been buying equipment, walked some short (10-12 mile) segments of the AT in New York to see what it looks like, and we have our one-way airline tickets to Atlanta. Stephanie and Samantha will be flying down with us to drop us off at the starting point on Springer Mountain near Atlanta, Georgia and they plan to meet up with us a couple of times on the journey when we are near civilization - once again, supporting us all the way. Have I told you how lucky we are?


I am planning to keep track of where we are on this blog using BlogPress and GPS Location. Between these two apps, I'll be able to save drafts of posts with photos and our position even when we're off the cell network. This will allow anyone to see where we are and what we're doing (at least after I get back near enough to civilization and cell service to post the drafts). Ideally these updates will be daily; it will probably be more like weekly. I guess I'll find out how connected one can be from the wilderness. As I write this in February, it's less than six weeks until we're out there.


The first two posts are just a couple of tests from the AT in early January to try out the software. While doing this, I discovered that BlogPress fails to find your location when you are not on the cell network, so I'll be using the GPS Location app to add coordinates to the posts.


Here's a link to the current weather all along the trail.




Monday, May 20, 2013

Trail Magic for J-Bird

May 9

I've written about a lot a trail magic. It's wonderful to be given gifts of fruit or sodas from total strangers. Today we came upon the ultimate magic. In a parking lot next to the trail we came upon Deann and Dave from Pennsylvania who drove to Virginia to provide trail magic in memory of their daughter's fiancé J-Bird who thru hiked in 2010 and then found he had colon cancer and died.
Deann and Dave set up two long tables covered with fresh vegetables, fruit, bags of all types of cookies, chips and sweets and were serving all you can eat hot meatball subs and hotdogs. There were three coolers filled with sodas, water, juice and Gatorade. It was flabbergasting. They even had camp chairs to sit on while we ate.

Matthew ate at least a pint of strawberries. I devoured a lot of grapes.


They drove hundreds of miles to make total strangers happy and boy did they succeed. That is the magic I'll remember my whole life.

They told us they chose Virginia because some research showed them this is the part of the journey that many people get down and give up and they wanted to help.

J-Bird is smiling somewhere. I know Matthew and I definitely are.

Thank you, Deann and Dave!

Location:37.10384, -81.20159
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)