This is the BIG morning! I’m finally leaving! Dad and I are driving down to Campo and might end up sleeping behind the store. I am 100% ready to start this trip. The grandest thing I’ve ever attempted. I can’t wait to be immersed in nature and let it enter me. Already I can feel it when I take a deep breath and I haven’t even started yet.

Today, was spent shoring up odds and ends. Made some stuff sacks with my mom, tried to finish a great book, walked around the neighborhood, bought some new trail shorts, had dinner with family, finished off my gear sorting, cleaned and prepared the house for my departure and wrote tons of email and made lots of phone calls. To think, as of tomorrow I won’t be doing any of that!

I’m a little disappointed with my final pack weight. It’s about 18 pounds without food, fuel or water. I was aiming for 15 pounds but I added the GPS and lots of small things. Plus I have way too many clothes in my pack right now because I can’t decide what exactly I don’t want. I’m not sure if I want shorts or pants, long underwear or none, short sleeves or long. So I’ve got it all. I also have a heavy water filter that I will almost surely send home quickly. I rarely carry one but I don’t have a lot of background drinking desert water sources.

I’m really looking forward to meeting lots of great people at the Kick Off. I’m not sure that I’ll be up for such intense social interaction for the whole event plus the first few weeks on the trail but I’m certain that if I want some alone time I’ll be able to find it.

I wish that I had trained more too. It’s going to be a hard first few weeks on the trail and I hope that the anxiety about that is done with once I actually start walking. I don’t think that there is an inch of my body (or a joint, membrane, or organ) that I haven’t worried about failing me. I really believe though that this hike will be more about mental than physical fortitude. So if I keep positive and confident (acknowledging negative thoughts but not letting them control me) I should be fine. So if you see me on the trail and I’m smiling weirdly (which I almost always am, when I’m not, I have a look of consternation that doesn’t mean much), I’m either truly happy, or just trying to convince myself that I am 

Next update might not come for a few weeks. I’ll be keeping my primary journal on paper and it probably won’t be transcribed. I don’t have a pocketmail device for online publishing for a few reasons. I like the idea spending time away from computers and the internet and I didn’t want to buy even more gear. I still really like trailjournals though so I’ll try to update when there are public computers around.

Time to go to bed filled with a sense of love and adventure. Bye!