Monday, February 28, 2011

Welcome!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to my AT blog, and thanks for reading! I'll be updating this several times throughout my trip. Mostly I'll be using this to tell you about places I've been, people I've met, and cool things I've experienced along the way. If you have anything specific you want to know more about, please comment or shoot me an email!

I want to take this opportunity to explain why I've decided to take this trip. The first time I heard of the AT was in eighth grade social studies. My teacher had done it in his early 20s when he didn't really know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. I'm sort of in the same boat: I worked for a few years at a couple different jobs, both related and unrelated to my degree, and wasn't really satisfied with the direction my life was taking. I had also always been intrigued by the Appalachian Trail and love being outdoors, so I started making plans to actually take the trip that had been an idea for quite a while. I'm planning to do a lot of reflection while I'm on the trail, and I'm also looking forward to the opportunity to get away from the technology that seems to rule our lives these days. God has really opened doors in my life to make this trip a possibility and reality, and I truly pray that I will use this time in my life with purpose, not simply as a reason to escape from "real life". I'm looking forward to the people I will meet and the relationships I will form, as well as the physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges I will face on the trail. I will be tested in all these ways, so I'm excited to see how I will change during the course of this journey; while I'm looking forward to the sheer physical accomplishment of hiking 2181 miles from Springer Mtn, GA, to Katahdin, ME, I know that the real achievement will be the discoveries made throughout the entire trip.

I'll be posting several more times before I go; I'm planning to post a gear list and several photos of the training hikes I've done in the past few months. So, be looking forward to those!