It was the mid 1990s, when I was first became aware of backpacking.... my friend Annie and her mom would hike section hike parts of the Appalachian Trail each summer. Each summer, Annie would invite a friend on this adventure - I was not outdoorsy by any means of the definition, but I romanticized what it would be like to get the invite to go along - intrigued by the concept, curious about the preparations Annie and said friend would make leading up to the trip, in awe of the gear and of course, the age old question...but, where do you go to the bathroom?.... the invite never came and my summers were spent in the usual rebellious teenager fashions, rather than experiencing what I imagined to be the great outdoors.

Fast forward a few years to college...me still never having been on as much as a day hike or car camping trip... there it is again... this mythical trail that goes from Georgia to Maine - I hear about a friend from middle school getting ready to do a "thru-hike" of the AT... I remember asking wait... you are going to hike the whole thing? for months? with a backpack?... I was mesmerized as I heard tales of my friend Michael making his way up the east coast to Katahdin. At this point, I had become a mom, so the idea of escaping for 5 months on an adventure of the sorts while enticing, seemed to not lay in the cards for my future.

Then in my late thirties, as I approached the idea of my son going away to college and the questions of what do I feel I missed out on in becoming a mother so long, who am I now that my cherished title of Mom is changing, do I even know how to make decisions for my own personal happiness or what that is anymore.... in the midst of this crisis of identity... first came Kristin Lund....then came Wes Sumrell. Kristin was the new to town...superstar college lacrosse player turned grossly mis-rated 3.0 tennis player that I was told I had to recruit for my teams.... I reached out...asked her to come play singles...and in between changeovers...she casually mentioned she was about to do a section hike of the AT with a friend.... there it was again...the intrigue...so many questions...forget the tennis tell me more... she mentioned the book Wild - which I had not even heard of and for the first time I was introduced to the letters PCT - she mentioned gear and packs and fears - I could not get enough details of her plans. The thought crossed my mind...maybe I could do a section hike, when Reed graduates. No, I still had never even gone on a real day hike - but maybe I could learn things from my adventurous friend. I got home that night and got on Facebook to search about this thing called the PCT... and before I could type anything into the search bar....a post was at the top of my feed - Wes Sumrell, friend of a friend, was getting ready to thru-hike the AT...my mind paused...wait Wes is at least 50 years old... my mind started to race... they allow old people on the trail to do thru-hikes? people that are my age can actually do this? but how...what about work? what about the kids, the mortgage, relationships.... how?

It was in following Wes's hike early on...that I made up my mind...I simply looked at John Crenshaw over dinner, while checking Wes's travels and said I am going to do that "some day".....

In 2018, I left all I knew and most of what I owned on a leap of faith and a flutter in my heart to move to California to be with an incredible man in the outdoor paradise of Marin County, California. At this point, I had at least been dayhiking quite a few times in my life...but arriving in Marin was like arriving in a playground in the climax of an elementary school recess. I hiked everyday, when I first arrived. I would wake up... open AllTrails and find my adventure for the day. Charlie and I were invited to join friends for an REI Adventure backpacking trip through Yosemite and up Half Dome. We practiced with a quick weekend trip to try out all this new gear to the seashore at Pt. Reyes.... it was cold, damp and yet, I felt like a kid on Christmas. The simplicity of it all was overwhelming....the beauty left me awestruck. A few weeks later we were on trail with 2 REI guides, a few strangers and Toni, Deb, Charlie, Madelaine, Connor and myself. I learned so much from this experience and highly recommend REI Adventures for anyone wanting to take a guided travel trip or tiptoe into the world of backpacking.

After returning home, I mentioned to Charlie how the idea of a thru-hike had always intrigued me, maybe after you retire for the second time...I asked. He shared how he had also once thought about doing something similar...but, given his bad knees... maybe a campervan trip would be more realistic. I was on board with that....but still longed to attempt the Appalachian Trail.

I began watching youtube videos, reading blogs, anything I could find to understand what such a journey would really entail. By January of 2020, I was obsessed. I had watched so many different stories and read so many trail journals...I felt like I was already a part of this sub culture of thru hikers. Charlie came home one day while I was watching a documentary that "Dixie," who happens to be from Opelika, AL, had made of her PCT hike...and he said hey I met her for lunch once to talk about her AT Thru Hike.... the look on my face was priceless...it was like he was telling me he had once had lunch with the Queen of England.

A few months later, in a conversation where I was talking about a hiker named Tip-Tap and her experience, he looked at me and said...you know you should do it....I sat stunned - he said the world is shutting down with this COVID stuff, you aren't working (we had just moved to southern california), why not?. I came up with a million why nots.... but the truth is I was afraid... afraid of taking on an endeavor like this and failing.... afraid of taking a leap of faith that life would be waiting for me when I got back.... afraid of doing this on my own, without him there beside me.... Covid and the environment of the world in 2020 - gave me the excuse not to...

I started back working and the obsession went to a locked box in the back of my head and in the back of my heart...