if this situation were chocolate, it'd be bittersweet...

i no longer own a truck! :)/:( on one hand, i no longer own a truck. :( on the other hand, i won't have to make those God-awful truck payments each month and pay ridiculous amounts of insurance and i will be able to HIKE HIKE HIKE all the way to maine. well, i mean... barring anything horrible happening that would pull me off the trail. 

the guy came down from north carolina last night and had a cashier's check in hand. he drove it around a little bit, played with the 4WD, and then we signed the bill of sale. i was kind of in shock that it happened last night, and when he cranked it up to drive it away, i got all misty-eyed. one day, i'll have another one. 

so i need to get with the program and finish buying my gear and figuring out my timeline for things. i haven't bought all my gear just yet because i wasn't 100% sure if i was going to be able to hike, and i didn't want to put all this money into gear that i wasn't sure i'd be able to use just yet. 

to help myself organize my thoughts, here's a list. things in bold, i've already got. the rest is just general ideas and things that i know i'll need. if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to leave me some hints. i'm not 100% sure what all i'll need for six months in the woods just yet, even if i have done a lot of research on all this...

pack group

• pack: coleman max elate 65L
• pack cover: came with the pack

sleeping gear

• sleeping bag: campmor 20* down bag
• sleeping pad: -
• liner: -
• tent: msr hubba hubba

electronics

• camera
• battery charger
• extra sd card
• extra battery
• transfer cable - bounce box?
• mp3 player? (would have to buy)

kitchen

• stove: currently have the new esbit stove; thinking about getting a msr pocket rocket
• fuel: - ; esbit tabs for now, poss. canisters later
• pot: dimebag ok? haha... jk
• frying pan: do i really need one of these?
• mug: -
• spork: -
• bladder: -
• bladder: -

hygiene/first aid/general group

• bug spray 
• rope
• water purification
• headlight
• knife
• tooth paste
• tooth brush
• soap 
• vitamins
• ibuprofen + acetaminophen
• more powerful painkillers
• benadryl
• pepto tabs
• neosporin
• 2 ace bandages 
• needles
• thread
• 2 4×4  gauze pads
• 5×9 gauze pad
• emergency blanket
• toe/hand warmers 
• whistle 
• alcohol pads 
• toilet paper 
• thru-hiker's companion 
• eye drops
• spare set of contacts
• compact mirror
• tweezers
• face wipes
• dental floss
• trowel

clothing worn

• shoes: merrells
• poles: probably wal-mart poles
• shirt: -
• pants: -
• socks: smartwool hiking socks
• socks: liners?
• underwear: ex-officio?

clothes packed

• socks: smartwool 
• socks:  liners?
• rain jacket: one that i've had for forever
• camp shoes: croc-like 
• base layer: top?
• base layer: bottom?
• base layer: sports bra
• buff x2, bandana
• shirt: - 

swayze stuff

• ruffwear approach pack
• dog food
• kong/peanut butter
• leash/collar/tags
• frontline/heartgard
• rimadyl
• ridgerest sleeping pad

so much for the rest of the dump...

so... i'm roughly 60 days away from springer. O M G.

as far as finishing my thoughts on the foothills... i guess i was just surprised at how little we actually needed. i've been looking through whiteblaze ever since the AT bug realllly hit me, back at the end of july. granted, joshua carried the tent, but we didn't really have a whole lot of... well, stuff. the two huge main things that i carried were my sleeping bag and my food bag. my sleeping pad was on the bottom of my pack. two water bottles. that was the vast majority of everything. i had an extra pair of socks.

the only things that joshua had that i didn't carry myself were a tent, the first aid kit, and the water purification system.

so really, if i were going to hike all by myself this march, i'd need to buy a pack, a sleeping bag, a tent, some sort of water purification system, a few band aids and a lot of food.

so i've not found a tent yet. or was it a sleeping bag that i was looking at first? i never really read my last entries before i decide to post a new one. either way, i'm still doing research and definitely have not figured anything out yet. but when he got off work last night, blake went camping somewhere upstate. he brought his pack in to work so no one would take it out of his jeep, and it made my AT fever flare up.

i bought another book. it's roland mueser's "long distance hiking: lessons from the appalachian trail." i read a lot of it at work yesterday because we were so slow. this brings my book count to four. =) lots 'n' lots o' research.

i had an epiphany earlier. i was totaling all of my bills up for this month and paying them and whatnot. when i hear people say, "oh, you should have $1/mile saved up to get you through your thru-hike," $2,100 seems like a ginormous figure to me. but i got to thinking about it... i'm going to lay out my current bill situation here:

cell phone	105
student loan	300
truck	455
insurance	120
gas	250
rent	575
electric	75
water	62
groceries	300
total	2,242

so really... it's more expensive for me to stay in society than to leave everything behind and get out on the trail. on the trail, the only expenses that i can think of that i would have would be my cell phone bill, a monthly storage unit to keep all my crap in, and food. and whatever i decide to do with my dogs, i'll still need to feed them.

on the trail, i could get rid of my rent and utilities and i'm planning on selling my truck anyways 'cause i can't afford it anymore. poof! 90% of my bills would be gone!

also, i don't know whether i'm going to try to train really hardcore for the trail anymore. the more i read, the more i discover that a lot of people seem to think that the only decent conditioning for a thru-hike is to just get out there and hike. this last book i bought said that after 6 weeks of being on the trail, your fitness level is pretty much good enough to hike the whole darned thing.

i use flip flops pretty much everywhere i go, so i've got decently tough feet. my vff's have given me blisters numerous times, so my feet have toughened up from those bouts.

i just can't believe my bills are so much each month. =( society sucks! i'd like to be a hermit now, please.

gear talk

so i don't have any gear. at all, really.

i'm thinking that if i'm really gonna do this, i should spend the next couple of days/weeks/whenevers researching gear and making a packing list. i guess i'll start out with a sleeping bag. that's pretty basic, right?

so i'll need one that will keep me super toasty warm. i'm such a wimp when it comes to being cold... i went camping once with a group of friends out by a lake and i had to be at work the next morning. i woke up at 2 a.m. because my face was so cold and i couldn't get back to sleep. i packed up my stuff that night and drove home to sleep in my warm bed for a couple of hours so i'd be able to function at work the next day. i'm SUCH a pansy when it comes to the cold.

so... i'll start checking out the forums and reviews and i'll decide on a sleeping bag first. =)

here are a few people are throwing around:

1. alps +20 this one weighs a little more than 3 lbs but it's only $65! and all the reviews have been great on it. i figure, too, that being rated for 20 degrees, it'll be able to keep me warm? i just think it's awesome that it's only $65. almost makes me want to buy it now. =) side note: booo... it's for people up to 6'6". =( that would give me an extra 12 inches of wiggle room... something maybe i shouldn't have? o.O

2. mountain hardware +15 found this one as well. it's only a 2#er, and it fits up to 6'. i read somewhere that it's nice to have a little extra space at the bottom of your bag for when you want to stuff clothes for the morning down at the bottom to warm them up overnight. this one's $205, though. =/

on the fence?

so i'm still on the fence as to whether i'm really going to do this (or at least this year).

am i really going to leave in march and hike 2,100 miles to maine?

i need to figure out my gear list... see how much everything will cost. then i'll need to figure out how much everything will weigh.

i need to do a lot of research. i need my rei catalog to come in. =)

brian sent me a facebook message asking if i was still going to do it. i don't want to tell him no.