Last Thursday we went to the Ft. Worth Botanic Garden for a walk about the garden. I love this garden because it is free to get into and it has a lot of open space for picnicking and lazing about if that is what you are into. Many of the spring bulbs were up and in bloom and I loved these hellebore’s. See–I am trying to learn other plants!

I ended up getting over the sinus infection crap for the most part, but Chris came down with it bad over the weekend. As of now we are still on for the weekend, but we’re taking it day by day to see how Chris feels—we don’t want to start off hiking while sick. I think he’s on the mend and the worst part is over, but it will be two weeks at the end of the week for me being sick and it seems like that is how long it is taking to get over it completely.

Also, we’re reading online to stay up to date on trail conditions and it seems many people who started in February or late January are either getting off the trail for awhile or are stuck just south of the Smokies due to the inclement trail conditions. If we keep our pace up we should be reaching the Smokies at the very end of March and first of April, which I would hope puts the trail conditions to be better. Someone had frost bite and got off the trail and I read at least two people made it halfway through the Smokies only to get off the trail. I just can’t imagine pushing myself like that when there isn’t really a reason to do so. It isn’t Everest, so why make it be like that?

We set up a Trail Phone account so we can call in from time to time with updates instead of blogging if we can’t blog. Look for Ridley & Panther on that page when the time comes.

Also, if you are someone who was interested in sending something to us on the trail these are the stipulations: tell us in advance so we know to pick up a package, make it something small that we can either eat right away or that we can carry, and make it in a smaller section like a 3 or 4 day section, not a longer one. The thing is, we will either have to throw it out or carry it and most likely if it is heavy or bothersome, it will be thrown our or sent home. So, small, edible, and tasty. We have our gear already, so please don’t send any gear unless we specifically ask for something.

I think I am going to set up Wordless Wednesday posts for the next few months—you know, so you have something to look at here. So, comment on them, k? Tell me something awesome about your day or how the weather is, or what you ate for lunch. Give me something to read when I have a minute.

Despite being sick and tied to the couch watching movies all day long, I am getting excited. We had hoped to go hiking at least once while we were in Dallas this week, but I wanted to lay low until I got better.

Chris ventured out today to the Heard Museum a stomping ground of his youth (I’ve been once, way back when we were dating in high school or college) to take some photos. He ended up spotting some trout lilies, flowers we had planned on trying to find while hiking around the DFW metroplex while we were here. We will try to go back next week so I can see them in bloom.

I am constantly checking Whiteblaze.net and Trailjournals.com for updates on the trail, seeing what new snow fall has occurred and if there are new blow downs and trail issues. A lot of people have started this week and it is getting exciting to read everyone’s stories. Only a week and a half and we will be out there, walking to Maine.

There are many things I am trying not to think about, only picturing the end and being on Katahdin. I’m skipping the rain, snow, cold, tired, pain moments—all of which I know will occur. The common mantra that is said is “No Pain, No Rain, No Maine”.

Oh, here you go, a photo of someone who went through it and made to Maine–in the rain of course. That’s the one conundrum, getting a clear, picturesque photo on top of Katahdin and not a dreary, rainy one. I’ve seen mostly rainy ones.

I’ve decided to re-read a few of my favorite journals I read over the past year to see what they did at the beginning.

I’m off to douse myself with some green juices and more medicine. My nose seems to be slowing down a bit, just wishing I could hear out of my ears soon.

I started coming down with what I thought to be a cold but now think is a sinus infection late last week. It has since knocked me down and I’ve been hibernating in my in-laws movie room watching all sorts of chick flicks and BBC America for Dr. Who.

It isn’t pleasant; I’m sick and officially have no insurance. It ended yesterday. The good part was finding out that the Minute Clinic at CVS is only around $60 for a visit for a cold related type things and if all they are prescribing are antibiotics and cough medicine, then you could escape a doctors visit for under $100.

Health insurance was our one sticking point for the trip. Well, not a sticking point, but a big question mark if you will. The fact is, health insurance isn’t cheap and the health care bill never got passed, so we’re stuck trying to find health insurance we can afford.

I received my COBRA information before I even left Florida and it was laughable. Over $600 a month for one person. Seriously ridiculous. We did this for a few months when Chris was in between jobs a few years ago and we could afford it because we were working, but that would quickly eat through our savings if we did it this time around. So, today Chris got online and dug around for an emergency insurance, something that would cover a catastrophic problem like being laid up in an a hospital for days on end. *crossing fingers that won’t happen and knocking on wood*. Once they review our application, hopefully we will be paying $100 a month for both of us for a catastrophic plan that would help us out in a pinch.

So, if I come down with a cough or cold I’ll be paying out of pocket for a doctors visit somewhere along the AT.

Aside from being sick, we did venture out for awhile to REI and to have lunch with Chris’ dad and step-mom. At REI we picked up a bunch of MSR fuel for our stove to put in our maildrops as well as a ton of tiny bottles of Dr. Bronner’s soap. The soap is a biodegradable soap that can be used to clean dishes and to wash yourself, so it is perfect for the trail. Some people even try to brush their teeth with it, but once some of it leaked in the bag we had our toothbrushes in and well, it doesn’t taste good.

Robin had a few questions:
Sorry if you answered this already, but for the food drops, how does that work?
We pack them into boxes and take them to the post office so they can be shipped to the points we want to pick them up at.

Do you stop off at various points along the trail and give the boxes of food to someone to keep?
Most of the boxes will be shipped to post offices and stored there until we pick them up. We will ship them about two weeks ahead of time with a tracking number. Some get shipped to private companies that can be picked up 7 days a week.

Or do you stash it somewhere?
Only if I want a bear to find it!!!

How long will it take to drop all that off? And I take it it will be done beforehand, right?
No dropping off! Just mail ‘em out two weeks prior to our scheduled arrival in that town so that we can pick them up. The mail drops are meant to supplement at a town that doesn’t have a good grocery store or maybe the town is a little spread out and we want to avoid running around town for hours on end.

We have a few other things to take care of for the trail like sealing the seams on our rain fly and figuring out our phone. We still haven’t made a final decision with that. We got our car insurance taken care of and will be doing comprehensive only for six months while it is in storage, greatly reducing our monthly bill.

I’ve already started thinking of ways to cut my weight at the beginning. I’m thinking of ditching a second sports bra, a pair of shorts and an extra shirt until we get through the Smokies. Hauling 11 days worth of food is going to bite. I have light-pack envy after seeing someone’s total weight of 18lbs on Trailjournals.com. That’s total weight of all gear plus food and water. I’m not interested in carrying more than 30 lbs of weight, which I think could happen in the Smokies. Some people carry 40+ lbs, until they get to Mountain Crossings at Neels Gap and get someone to help them drop their pack weight.

Two weeks from now we’ll be toasty in our sleeping bags somewhere in Georgia.

Well, one thing we learned with mail drops is that lunches are the hardest part of the planning process. And we bought slightly too much food.

For Christmas we received money to go towards buying dehydrated food for our mail drops. Chris went online and scoped out deals and found a lot of food for good prices from a variety of vendors like Mountain House and Backpackers Pantry. We put them all in a box and brought them home.

For breakfast and lunches we hit Sam’s Club, Walmart, Whole Foods and Tom Thumb to pick up all the things that we thought we’d want. I am pickier about lunch than Chris; he can survive on trail mix and I’m not a big fan of trail mix. I would prefer to have things like pouches of chicken and tuna, peanut butter or pepperoni. So, we walked the aisles of these stores to pick up the items we wanted. We bought mostly dried fruit at Whole Foods because I think they have better quality and choices. We bought about six or seven drops of pepperoni and my parents will have to get more for us later because we bought the pepperoni out at Tom Thumb.

We sat down last Monday and went through all of the guidebooks and consulted Whiteblaze.net to determine the best places for mail drops. People either seem to be very into mail drop or very anti-mail drops. And some are very vehement about it. We initially had 12 drops, re-evaluated it and dropped one and rearranged some and added a few more town stops to break up some 70+ mile hikes between towns.

Here is what we ended up with Google Doc spreadsheet. The dates are more or less where we will be at and we may add more town stops as we find out more on the trail by those in the know.

To put together our mail drops we bought 11 12×12x12 boxes and then after packing we found that two boxes had too much in them to even close so we bought two 15×12x10, for the 100+ mile sections through the Smokies and the 100 miles wilderness and one 14×14x14 for a 7 day section. We’ve chosen not to go to Gatlinburg in the middle of the Smokies because of the distance (15 miles) and the hassle of it, so we are going to just carry a lot of food to get us from Fontana Dam to Hot Springs. It seems about 50/50 do this.

Anyway, we laid everything out in the living room and broke it out by how many days we were going to carry and had to count it all out. Lunches were much more of a pain, they will be made up of various items including bars like Powerbars for Chris, Larabars, Cliff and Odwalla bars for me. We put in mini Goldbond powders at each drop, hand sanitizer, AA batteries, and a change of toothbrushes in the middle. I’m sure we will had some other things we think of and we will keep them open for my parents to add things as we ask.

We did a short time-lapse video of us putting the whole thing together:

Patrice had a few more questions:
What are you putting in your bounce box? I know you mentioned on the video putting in your camelbak cleaner, but what else? I’ve heard of people putting in chargers and clean clothes, so I was just curious.
-I think we’ve decided not to have a bounce box since we won’t need much and we will just put the camelbak cleaner in one of the drops and send it back home after we are done with it. I suppose we could bounce it from there. We’ll see. No clean clothes, we’ll just wear our rain gear while we wash laundry or borrow some of the clothes that many hostels have for those who want to change out of their clothes for the day. As for chargers we are carrying a USB charger for our mp3 player and will charge it at computers, and we bought a little charger at AT&T that takes AA batteries for our phone.

What degree sleeping bag are you guys starting with? Do you think you’ll switch it come summer?
We are using a 15* Marmot Helium sleeping bag for each of us for the entire trip. We wanted to save money and didn’t buy a summer bag. If it is too hot we just won’t use it or will use it for padding to sleep on.

I’m sure it will change, but what do you guys plan to eat for meals? Always looking for new ideas/options.
Breakfasts are typically going to oatmeal or cream of wheat, a bar like the Natures Valley oat bar or the Cliff bars etc. I’m sure we’ll come up with ideas on the trail.

Lunches will be pepperoni on tortilla, pb with English muffins or pita, chicken packs with tortilla or pita, or whatever we can come up with. In towns we can buy string cheese and it will keep for several days so we will do that some. If we have enough fuel maybe we’ll cook some meals for lunch. We just wanted to save fuel.

Dinners will vary from dehydrated meals in our drops to packs of chicken and tuna with Lipton/Knorr rice and noodles, to ramen, mac and cheese, soups, and whatever else we find. I’m sure we will come up with interesting ideas!

I’m battling a cold now and am hoping to get over it in the next few days so that we can do some hiking next weekend. Only two weeks until we’re at Springer!

As we wind down our first week here in Texas, time is inching closer to when we leave for Georgia for the Trail. We’ve tentatively set the date for starting for the weekend of the 13th of March. With all of the snow that has fallen this month and in January, it appears the trail conditions are fairly bad, especially in the higher elevations of North Carolina and up the trail.

We experienced the blow-downs here and there are a lot of them on the AT in GA and NC right now, though local trail associations are clearing them out as they can.

I think we’ve convinced my uncle and my dad to drive us out there to start. We’ll be paying for gas, of course, but it seemed to be the most feasible way to do things. We’d originally thought to fly out and then find a ride from the Atlanta airport to Amicalola Falls State Park, but the ease of being driven to the approach trail at the park sounds much better.

I also like the idea of having my dad out there to see us off. He can take photos and assure my mom we’re going to be alright.

After doing some hiking around here the past few days I already know that the hike up the approach trail is going to kick our butts. We are going to be craving some straight sections and downhills after awhile, but eventually our quads, calves and shins will get used to the abuse and carry us through.

So far we’ve either had people think we’re insane or they’ve been a bit jealous that we’re going. Sometimes I think we’re insane, but mostly I’m looking forward to being out in the woods. After downgrading everything we have in our life I’m finding some of the consumerism around here overwhelming. And I want to go in every store and buy something. HA! It’s a strange combination, feeling like there is just too much ’stuff’ but then also craving to buy something. I could have bought out REI, or at least the womens clothing section. I think most of it is a novelty of seeing all of these places I haven’t seen in so long as Florida doesn’t have the urban sprawl that Texas has. Don’t get me wrong, Florida has sprawl, but it also has a limited amount of space to build. There is just store after store here and oh, Mexican food on every corner.

As for seeing Mexican on every corner, it is kinda nice to see things written in Spanish, too. I had gotten used to seeing Pollo Tropical restaurants and then billboards written in Spanish and Spanish on just about everything in Miami, but Spanish is finally becoming more prevalent in North Texas, too. I kinda miss the cultural diversity. It is much more separate here, particular parts of town and not everyone mixed into one big lump of a county.

I was on Whiteblaze.net earlier and found a cool site called Trail Phone where people call in and give trail reports. It is really awesome! I don’t know if we’ll use it or not, but I like the idea of calling in and giving a minute report on what’s going on.

I guess I’m about done with my rambling for today. We’re spending all day tomorrow doing our mail drop planning since we’ll have some quiet time. We may end up buying food for the drops as well if we have the time. It’s supposed to snow or ice on Tuesday or Wednesday and we’d planned to go to East Texas to visit my friend Michelle so hopefully we don’t get snowed out.

Where is the 70*?

Alright, I’m finally getting around to the couple of questions that were asked a few posts ago. I know the videos probably cover a lot of the answers, but I will take a few minutes to answer the questions now that we are semi-settled in again.

Chris Hind asked: I’d like to know what backpacks and tents you guys will be using.

We are using Osprey Atmos 65 packs. Mine is the small version, Chris is using a large. I got my backpack from my dad who got it off of Steep and Cheap and it wasn’t what he was thinking it would be so he gave it to me. Chris ended up liking it and bought the same one in large.

Our tens is a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL 2, a two person tent. It sets up super quick, probably 5 minutes or less and we’ve set it up in the rain before as well. It is a snug fit, but we bought it because we wanted two access points and room to store both of our packs under the tent at night. Don’t worry, the food and smellables will be going in a bear bag up in a tree.

Patrice asked: How many food drops are you planning?

When you blog from the trail, how do you plan to do it? Blackberry/IPhone? Or just relying on town computers?

Food drops…we haven’t gotten that far yet. We’re planning on working that out this weekend. We will probably do what the average person starting out does…more than they need. We got a lot of Christmas money that went towards buying dehydrated food so now we need to use it all. We will definitely be buying food in towns as well.

For photos we are using a Pentax Optio W80, which is waterproof. We’ve used it underwater in Florida several times and it works great. Of course we’d love to take our dSLRs but I don’t think those are trail safe, not to mention they are heavy! We’ll probably GPS some locations for future excursions and head back to take photos. I know there will be cool lady slipper orchids along the way. The camera also does video so we will be doing some clips here as well. As for batteries with the camera, we’re going to charge them all up at the beginning and leave the charger at home and as we go through batteries send them home to be charged and put in mail drops up the trail.

Blogging…we’re going strictly with computers in libraries, hostels, hotels etc. We wanted to reduce our bills and we don’t even own a Blackberry or iphone so we’ll stick with an old-fashioned cell phone that calls people. We are taking a journal and pen and I will try to write a lot at night or mornings and I think I will probably translate out some of those into blog posts when I get into towns. I could easily do several posts and schedule them on Wordpress here.

So, are there any more questions? Come on, I know there are! Ask away!

We’re over in Dallas for a few days hanging out with Chris’ family. We did two small hikes the other day, one at Lake Grapevine which ended when we found a creek crossing that was swollen with water from the recent snows, and then another hike at the Ft. Worth Nature Center yesterday. A lot of trees have been broken from the snow and were blocking our path access on the trail. We met up with a guy on the trail who was a nature photographer and he gave us some tips on where to go take photos of birds around the Ft. Worth area. His website here.

More adventure talk later.

Instead of listing everything out, which I know we’ll do eventually on our Trailjournal page, we did a video the other night in order to take account of everything we had. I know a few things got left out like our hats and mp3 players, but here they are.

Off for a hike to Grapevine Lake…

We finally made it to DFW today around 5pm. The perfect time for traffic. We had smooth sailing the entire trip until we hit Dallas rush hour and then a few key places near my parents house in Tarrant county.

I have to be honest, it was hard to leave Florida. When we passed Pensacola and into Alabama I felt very sad. Through Alabama and Mississippi, where we stayed last night, I felt lost. It subsided a little once we entered the western part of Louisiana and then, finally, east Texas. But, it feels weird being back home.

It’s home, but not home. A limbo state. And there is snow on the ground and it’s cold. In Ft. Lauderdale it will probably be 70 or so. Bummer.

The cats survived the car ride and we ended up not letting them out until we got to the hotel and then to my parents house. The hotel was ok for them but the house here is not good for them. My parents have two Boston terriers that just want to play and chase and the cats are not into that. I think they will come around with the other cats, but they are scared of the dogs. Which is a little odd because they lived with a big pit bull for a year and a half, but Baloo didn’t chase them.

Hopefully in a few days they will calm down and be normal again and the dogs will get some discipline and learn not to mess with the cats.

Tomorrow we have to take care of chores: insurance, phone, a trip to REI and some plants we brought with us that have to go into my brother’s greenhouse.

Did I forget to mention that it is cold? I don’t have much winter clothes.

I have gotten to see Zoe, but she doesn’t like me too much. She doesn’t remember me and all she wants is Mimi, my mom. It’s Mimi, Mimi, Mimi all around here. With a smidge of Paw Paw. (Or Pa Pa?) Oh, boy, what a handful she is! Tomorrow we’ll get to see Ashleigh.

More tomorrow. I need to take some photos. Chris saw some roadrunners today. I missed them.

If you are new here to my little blog, you can subscribe here and use a blog reader if that is your inclination or click the link that says to get the feed delivered by email. Then, you can follow along on our little adventure and listen to any nonsensical ramblings that I come up with…which is fairly often.

So, last night Chris summed it up pretty simply while talking to his mom on the phone. We’re unemployed and almost homeless. I’ll add on to that: We’re unemployed, almost homeless, practically without health insurance and all by choice.

Yesterday was our last day of work. I actually did some work in the morning but the afternoon was a wrap up of goodbyes and being a bit sad. The ride home from work was in a slight daze, me trying to remember to look at the scenes and take it in before I wouldn’t see them again. I was kicking myself for not taking some photos of the cleared out culverts on US 41 because the pond apples there are very cool looking right now without their leaves.

And then, I was home and it was over. These past four weeks after I gave my notice I kept wondering if we were doing the right thing. I knew we were, but we were making good money in professional jobs and you know, the economy sucks right now. But we both talked about it and multiple people kept telling us that we couldn’t wait forever for anything to be perfect. The economy could take years to recover and by then it would be too late for us to go on this adventure. So, it is what it is. We have a cushion of money for the next 7 months and hopefully it will support us well enough and we will have to be frugal for awhile.

Today we are finishing up the packing, cleaning up the house and I know we’re going to be exhausted. Tomorrow we’re having breakfast with Kathy and Randy and wrapping things up at the house and taking off to Orlando to stay with some friends. Then Monday we’ll drive half way to Texas and Tuesday afternoon we’ll be in Texas. Hopefully the 1′ of snow that fell there will be gone!

I haven’t gotten to my Florida post yet, but I will do that next week. I have a list of places every person should visit once in Florida. I’ve got a post scheduled for tomorrow and might or might not write one on the road on Monday night.

If not, I’ll “see” you all in Texas.

Now that it is officially the last week of work, the countdown towards Sunday has begun.

On Saturday our POD got delivered. We ended up going with a POD instead of a U-Haul or similar because of the ease of which loading the container seemed to be. The cost was a bit more but we felt like it would be worth it not to have to shuttle everything across states and load and unload it countless times. Now we can load the POD up when we want and take our time throughout the week. It is about 1/4 full at the moment and more work will be done every evening this week.

As for work, I’m trying to focus and keep finishing a few projects, but it is getting difficult. Next week I won’t think anything of it because I will have my hands full trying to visit with family and friends and then plan out our mail drops for the trail. And somehow fitting in hiking and working out for the trail in the midst of it all.

I was thinking of doing an ‘ask me anything about the Trail’ post, so if you have a question about the trip, ask it here. If you want to know what sleeping bags we’re using—ask away. If you want to know if I’ll see bear—ask it here. I’ll write it up and answer it in a few days.

I know I said my trail name is going to be Ridley, but Chris told me right after I posted that post that he was going to be Panther. Ridley is for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, my favorite, and Panther—well, Chris has seen six panthers in the past few years and so I think he started liking them a lot.

We’re packing and working every night this week. We still have things to get rid of; bookshelves, day bed, futon and other items. One thing I’ve learned about listing things on Craigslist and Freecycle is that people are very flaky. I had two different people come look at a bookcase and didn’t like it and get emails from people and then they back out after several conversations back and forth. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with the left over furniture, I guess put it out at the curb and hope someone takes it.

Wednesday night we’re getting together with some of our friends down here in SoFlo and having dinner. I’m glad to see them all again before we go. I’m trying very hard not to think about Baloo. I miss him already.