new perspective?

soo... i posted something on facebook yesterday because i was slightly frustrated/upset because joshua left yesterday morning for georgia. he summitted springer this morning and sent me a text with the picture of the AT trail plaque attached. it's not about him; it's about my jealousy/envy. i wish it were me, out there on the trail with my pack on and my dog with me, setting up camp right about now so spend my first of many nights in the woods. 

i updated my facebook status yesterday to read: "dear Lord, i know your timing for everything is perfect and all, and maybe the reason i haven't sold my truck yet is because maybe if i started the AT right now, i would cross paths with a serial killer, but can't i just sell my truck asap & if i meet a psycho on the trail, you could just give me temporary +50 strength & agility?" and my friend jessica posted a comment that read: "I hope the reason you are having to wait is because there is something super special in store for you rather than a serial killer :)." her comment hit me like a ton of bricks. i generally consider myself to be an optimist, but her comment really made me say, "whoa. maybe she's right. maybe there's actually a good reason i haven't sold my truck and hit the trail just yet." maybe i should just learn to let God deal with everything and trust in His timing. it's so hard, though, because i know what *i* want. but maybe there's something good waiting in store for me and He's postponing me selling my truck because... well. i don't know why. i've never prayed for patience. i do believe everything happens for a reason, but ever since i moved to charleston, i guess i've become a tad bit on the pessimistic side. as i stand right now, other than meeting the people that i've met, i can't see any good that's come out of me getting the job that i moved down here for. but i've beat that dead horse; no use ranting about it now, other than to say that i still don't know why i am where i am in life right now, so it's a little hard to understand why i haven't sold my truck. if any of that even makes any sense. 

there's a saying, "let go and let God." my desire to get out of charleston and out of society is so intense right now, it's seriously like a physical... not ache or pain or hurt. i guess "condition" is maybe the word i'm looking for? but it's a real, physical thing in my chest. it's so hard to let everything go and trust in Him when i'm so focused on where i'd really like to be right now. i watched a few youtube videos of AT thru hikers yesterday and it brought tears to my eyes. maybe that makes me a pansy. 

i'd really just like to sell my truck. i'm gonna have to sell it regardless; i can't support it on a starbucks salary. i can't afford it anyways, and i don't know what i'm going to do if i haven't sold it come april first, 'cause that's about when i told kelly i'd be out of her house. i just know that being on the trail will be relatively (mentally) stress-free because i'll be out in the woods with nature and God and my dog and i'll have nothing to bother me. and it stresses me out even more that the truck is the last big obstacle standing between me and being stress-free. 

geez. this entry sounds like i should have been lying on a couch with a guy and his notepad sitting behind a desk. =P

anybody wanna buy a truck? =)

oh my dear lordt. i went to bristol wednesday night and came back last night and had an absolute amazing time. i stayed with my friend joshua and had lunch with awesome friends at awesome places that i really miss dining at. i dropped jolie off with nick. =/ it's kind of weird not having a second dog. i let swayze sleep in the bed with me last night. 

joshua left for his thru-hike today. i don't wish i was going with him, necessarily. hyoh kind of thing, ya know? but i'm extremely jealous that my dream isn't as within reach as i thought it was. i have yet to find a buyer for the truck. the last guy even started paperwork at his bank on the truck, but some other truck's paperwork finalized before mine did. le sigh. 

joshua's pack is 33 lbs. i picked it up, and that's extremely heavy! the last big purchase i need to make is a sleeping bag. i'm not sure how much my pack will end up weighing. oh, and i need to buy swayze's stuff, too. like her pack and a blanket/coat for her. 

i got my tent in last friday!! =D it's basically amazing. it's huge and i can set it up in less than five minutes (if i don't stake it out). i'm sure if i counted staking it out and whatnot, it'd be more, but anyways. swayze and i fit in it just fine! 

i wish i were headed to springer right now. i hear the mountains calling, calling. 

foothills trail - complete! :)

so a friend of mine and i thru-hiked the foothills trail this past weekend. i'm officially a thru-hiker! i had so much fun and deep down, i enjoyed every minute of it, even if it didn't show on the surface at all times. the scenery was gorgeous, the weather was decent (considering the forecast, it was perfect)... it was, all in all, an experience i am so glad i went through.

there were a few times on the trail when i thought to myself, "would i really want to do this for six months on end? would i really want to walk 2,100 miles?" and the answer was generally a resounding, "yes!" i hadn't physically prepared myself at all for this trip. i'd never backpacked, so i didn't know what it'd be like hauling around a 35# pack for days on end. i regularly walk my dogs to the park, but a 3-mile round-trip walk in the lowcountry is nothing compared to a 5-mile uphill ascent. had my friend not been there, i wouldn't have pushed myself the way i did and i wouldn't have done the 77 miles in five days.

those five days were a constant cardio workout. i know you're not technically supposed to wear cotton, but i did wear a tshirt underneath my jacket. i'd get so hot in some sections of the trail (even with snow on the ground) that i'd have to come out of my jacket and hike in only a tshirt. i still don't understand how my friend rarely ever came out of his rainjacket. i would have burned up. is this a sign of poor endurance, my overheating in such a short timespan? o.O

the first night in the woods, we bear bagged, but it didn't really work out all that well, and i don't think it would have been a sufficient enough job to keep them away if they had come out. the rest of the time, we slept with our food bags in the tent. we cooked right beside the tent (instead of the recommended distance of 50'? away from the tent), and we never had a problem.

we used a clip flashlight tent, and while my friend hated it from the get-go, i only found myself disliking it when we'd wake up in the mornings and there'd be a ton of condensation in the tent around us. there's nothing like waking up wet when you've got a roof over your head. he said it was because of the mesh on the tent. i'm wondering if it wasn't the condensation of our breath? but he dismissed that and chalked it up to the mesh. either way... i won't be getting a clip flashlight.

i had a regular sleeping pad, and he bought me a thermarest before the trip but for some reason i didn't take it. i guess i just slept with the regular one that night in the van, so i figured i'd stick with it throughout the trip. i shouldn't have. i never got a peaceful night's sleep because of the pressure points my hips and the ground would cause. i'll have to look into the thermarests. i didn't get it back from him before we departed.

i've read skywalker's book on his trail life. if there's one thing that got on my nerves about him and bill bryson, it was how much they didn't really seem to enjoy being out in the woods. bryson never even finished the trail, and skywalker slept in every hotel he could find, it seemed like. it wasn't until we'd been on the trail for 3 days and i had a bum ankle and it was getting dark and cold and it looked like we'd have to wind up setting up a wet tent that i understood just why they felt the way they did. we walked into the public restrooms of one of the national parks on the trail, and they were clean and had running water that you didn't have to purify and there was even heatlamps! and you didn't have to pee in the woods! it was when i was there, standing in front of the hand dryer and drying out my buff, that i realized at that moment, i was no better than skywalker. i could see where he was coming from.

the one thing that amazed me was how quickly my body adapted to the demands of the trail. i was never really sore because i kept working those same muscles, getting the lactic acid out of my system. i fell a few times on the second day because of wet leaves and snow/ice and i hurt my ankle a bit. i was sore from that, but as far as my back being sore or my abs being sore or my legs being sore... it never really happened. granted, i felt like my legs were fatigued to the point of failure at times, but they never really ached.

i will never, ever, EVER get another protein bar with malitol in it. i know the label warns of gastrointestinal upset and diarrhea, but i never even let it get to that point because the two varities of bars that i got were disgusting and i could barely eat half of them. i bought them thinking, "oh hey there protein. i'll need you." silly. i will definitely stick to snickers from here on out. joshua even had the fun-size snickers bars. for the mini-boost, i suppose. he also had a bag full of dried apples, banana chips, and cranberries that he'd concocted from the things he'd bought from wal-mart. very good, i'd say. i also should have brought more mashed potatoes on the trail. the third night, my dinner consisted of mashed potatoes, smoked cheddar cheese, and real bacon bits i'd packed in. as soon as that hit my lips, i almost cried it was so good. i will definitely have to remember more mashed potatoes, more fruit and snickers, and less malitol. oh, and less ramen i think.

i took a lot of clothing on this trip... i took a scarf (which i didn't need and will never take again because now i have my buff), my underarmour shirt (which if i would have actually worn, i would have probably roasted alive in it), and a lot of other stuff i didn't need.

i will finish this dump later.. but for right now, i'm sleepy. i just wanna write all this down before i forget it. :)