Or…

One could become utterly fascinated with the dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail and spend hours trying to document it using the terrain map on Google maps. As some of you may follow the Desert O’s blog, Weaver’s Tantrum, you may know that he is hiking the AT at this very moment. It’s long been a dream of mine too. I met a woman once who had just returned from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (alone) with a foot injury. She hiked the entire thing, downing bottles of ibuprofen to get through the pain over the six months it took to complete the distance. At the stops in towns, she would polish off gallons of ice cream. I met her at a party and was so fascinated that I couldn’t bring myself to follow party etiquette to mingle with other people or let her mingle with other people. I couldn’t stop asking her questions about the training involved and what the experience was like. She was my instant hero and I added the Pacific Crest Trail to my “life to-do” list that night. But you know how life is. You realize that some dreams, like owning my own farm, and a house in Italy, or being good friends with Oprah or Brooks Robinson will likely never come to pass. Some dreams are just too big for a little gal like myself to realize.

Now, after reading Desert O’s blog, I find that my dream to hike the AT is resurfacing. I’m determined to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim. Maybe next year. My husband refuses to buy into my craziness and has promised the most he’ll do is meet me at the other side with cookies. However, hiking the AT I’ve tried to put out of my mind. It’s one thing to wear yourself out and deal with short-term misery of a couple of days hike, but to take time off work and be uncomfortable, cold, and hungry for months at a time, is quite a different question of stamina and endurance. After reading Bill Bryson’s book, “A Walk in the Woods,” I tried to tell myself that a hike like the AT wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyway. Yet, now I’m finding it hard to convince myself again that I’m not intrigued.

So I have already wasted a couple of days following the Appalachian Trail where it’s marked on Google, creating my own map, tracing the trail with placemarkers, researching on the Internet to find more maps to explain what happens to the trail after the Davenport Gap shelter near Highway 40, where the trail seems to end abruptly, and remembering all the other places I still want to visit here. Numerous places I’ve heard nice things about: Hiawassee, Georgia, Mount Rogers, Virginia, and for once, to time a visit to crisp Roan Mountain, North Carolina when the rhododendrons are actually in bloom.

I’m behind in my chores again, and the stack of magazines and books refuses to get any smaller, but what a rich, wonderful life I have. Times like this, I wish I could find the fountain of youth so that I could see and do all the things on my long, long list. The short hikes, I know I’ll get to one day. And for now, I’ll have to settle for doing weekend hikes and reading and thinking about Desert O’s adventures. He needs a trail name. Consider visiting his blog and making a suggestion. I think it should be an Oriole name.

I’ll keep dreaming and maybe it won’t happen for me, but I’ve already picked out my trail name. I don’t want to give it away but it has something to do with an outstanding fielder whose name conjures up images of peaceful mountain streams. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be reading my adventures of hiking the AT, that hopefully with have nothing to do with bears, starvation, or frost-bite, but will include copious amounts of ice cream, and peaceful mind-clearing days.

(Hey if I can believe the Orioles are going to the World Series this year, I can convince myself of anything. And yes, I know that just because you believe something, it doesn’t make it true.)

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