Flight Confirmation Received!

I bought my plane tickets today!

I will be flying from Seattle to San Diego on April 21!
Some lovely trail angels in the San Diego area will be retrieving me from the airport, keeping me overnight, and driving me to the US/Mexican border in the morning for the kick off event!
Woohoo!
My flight from D.C. to Seattle is in the morning on April 16th.

More things happening:

1) I got the first 1/3 of my maps in the mail! Starting to plan out my resupply boxes, but I won't be able to really put stuff together until I get to Seattle and can sit down and work it all out with Grace, my resupply person (and best friend!).

2) I am putting in my notice of leave at work in a few days. I am very ready for the break, it's been stressful the last couple of months, but at the same time I will miss these jobs very much. Especially my wonderful co-workers. You all know who you are :)

3) I think I'm going to do a training trip before I go. I live right next to the Shenandoah portion of the Appalachian Trail, a smooth, well-graded, 100-mile stretch of some of the prettiest trail along the entire length of the AT. My plan is to take about 5 days and hike as much of it as I can, from April 6 to April 11. This will let me get acclimated to trail living, test out my gear, and hopefully, given my lax pace requirements since I don't have to finish the full 100 miles, won't wear me out right before I start the real thing. My only concern is allergies. April is peak pollen season for me, and pollen makes me absolutely miserable. If my allergies are bad this year, I may skip this training trip to save myself the exhaustion of dealing with my immune response for 5 days of full pollen exposure. Hopefully it doesn't come to that though!

Schedule of resupply stops to come soon, for those of you who want to send me letters/packages!

Twenty Three!

Today I am twenty three years old. I like that number, twenty three. It's kind of a weird, easily overlooked number. It tends to stand on its own, but even though it's a relatively small number, it feels strong, whole. I like telling people that's my age now. It fits.

In hike planning world, I got my thru hike permit from the PCTA this week! I start on April 23rd, 2015. OFFICIALLY! That's another big twenty three in my life.

Anyway, all I have left to do now is buy my plane ticket and order the updated 2015 maps (which haven't been posted yet). Oh. And move. What fun!

This month I started reading a new book. I found this book very much by accident, just perusing an antique shop in Maryland before Christmas, and the title jumped out at me. "Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype". I had to buy it.

In the book, the author, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, examines how civilized cultures throughout history have been the systematically stifling of the instinctive Wild Woman spirit. Every woman has Wild Woman within her, but most of us have never met her, or otherwise have severed communication with her long ago. Society is teaching us to keep her silent, ignore her instincts, and never bite back. Wild Woman and wolves have a lot in common; bravery, loyalty to their pack, intuition, endurance and strength, adaptability, keen senses, but above all, the prevalence of so-called "hunters" in our world who misunderstand them, deem them vicious and of less value, and seek to extinguish them. Women who embrace Wild Woman fully are often criticized, or even ostracized, for their "wildness," but what's worse? The woman with no access to her instincts, who hides within work, relationships, domesticity to protect her from the world she can no longer sense, or the woman who fears nothing, hides nothing, regards the world with reverence and wisdom, but occasionally bites :)

I am a Wild Woman at heart. I think deep down all women are. I think back to my childhood, when I felt restricted by the braids in my hair and the dresses I was made to wear, when I preferred to let my hair fly free and run barefoot through the mud. Back when I was more in love with the rain and wind and the sun on my face than any Barbie doll or grade school crush. Back when I wasn't afraid to stamp my feet and storm out of ballet class when the teacher wouldn't let me wear my boots. That girl was lost to me for so long, only peering into my life on brief occasions when the wildness was provoked by an intense moment, caught in a freak thunderstorm or on the precipice of a mountain ridge looking down on the world. Now that I recognize her again, I want her to stay, never to be banished to the dark unexplored corners of my soul again. That girl is the one who has asked me to go on this adventure, her strong knowing voice echoing up from deep within the center my spirit.

I believe now that this is what my hike is about; reawakening my wildish spirit.