UNDER WAY – DAY 2

Sat, Feb 20, 2016 I decided not to rush off to the trail the day after my arrival at Hiker Hostel.  I had too much to figure out.  Which keyboard, the rubber, waterproof one which rolled up or the hard one which folded in the middle?  I set up my Galaxy S2 Tablet on its homemade vinyl-covered wire stand and tried out both keyboards.  I decided on the hard one because of its more reliably functioning keys and easier packing.  It fit in the electronics bag.

I paid bills, plotted my course to start the trail, collected all stuff I figured I didn’t really need along with the stuff I’d planned to send home and got a box from the supply the owners kept on the back porch for just such use.  I packed it with the old sheet, the rubber keyboard, my Canon camera (had my phone), labeled it and Josh weighed it for shipping home.  It’s in our basement as is from almost a year ago.

Lunch, supper and get ready for bed.  Knowing from all my reading about the trail that I would lose weight, I decided to take a picture of my naked torso for comparison at the finish.  It’s a little embarrassing but here it is.

As I post this picture, I imagine what Josh and Leigh must think as they see hikers come through their hostel: “He’ll never make it” or “If she finishes, she’ll be carrying half the stuff she has in that pack.”  They know that 3 out of 4 people that come to their hostel will not make it to Katahdin.

The thought that I would not finish just didn’t exist.  I had come to hike the Appalachian Trail – the time had come – and it was going to be done.  No thought to the contrary.  No thought of dread at the length of the undertaking or the 5,000,000 steps it was supposed to take.  No thought that the mountains would be too hard, the cold too cold or the heat too hot – or the insects too vicious, or the bears t0o scary.  It was time to hike and we would start tomorrow.