Our Thru-hike Preparation

Only 29 days left till we leave on our hike!

I can hardly believe its only about a month till we leave. As most of you probably already know we plan to hike the Appalachian Trail together this year. It starts in Georgia and ends in Maine and would take approximately 5-6 months if we complete it. The last few months have been filled with going through all the things we own and deciding what all we will keep/not keep, watching endless amounts of YouTube videos on other people’s hikes, researching the perfect lightweight gear, doing shakedown hikes, and trying to prepare financially and mentally. Other than a few of the hiking trips we did take, a lot of this preparation has been done from the couch in the comfort of our living room. Now, I realize that we are only a few weeks away from leaving all the comforts and normalcy of life as we know it and diving into this new adventure with both feet.
Scary? Yes.
All the questions suddenly hit somedays like:
What if we don’t even make it that far?
What if we get injured and have to get off the trail?
What if our gear doesn’t work for us?
What if we don’t get along with each other?
What if we get Lyme disease from the ticks?
What if we run out of money and don’t have enough to finish?

But, is it exciting? Absolutely, YES!!
I am so excited for this trip! We have been planning for over a year and I’m so ready to just get out there and do it! I know there will be things we leave behind but I know that there will be so many benefits to being on the trail and out in nature. Im excited to:
-build more physical and mental resilience
-to soak up the peace and quiet of just being in nature
-to get away from the demanding, cluttered lifestyle I feel I tend to create for myself

And of course my favorite:
getting to be with Lance every single day and getting to know each other better and create amazing memories together.

We do plan to rent our house out while we are gone and most likely long term. So when we get back we will look for a place to live, most likely rent till we find a place to buy. We sold some of our furniture and belongings and plan to store everything in a shed till we get back and find a place.
One huge blessing in all this is Lance being able to keep his job. We were not expecting that he would be able to and were planning on just going for it anyway, but they graciously said that they would hold his job for him.
The next month will be filled with last minute packing all our household items up, getting all our bills set up to auto pay while we are gone, setting up arrangements for my 2 cats and where they will live while we are gone, and working out trying to get into better shape before we hit the trail.
Im not sure how often to say I will blog…I want it to be fairly consistant but I have no idea how it will be out there on the trail and how often I will write. I’m not sure I really feel like a ‘blogger’ but I’m excited about this so we can record our adventures and also keep you all updated on what’s going on in our lives while we are gone. Hope you enjoy following along.
-Marlisa