Last Tuesday I hurt my back at work. I was laid up for the rest of the week on the couch playing video games. It gave me a a lot of time to think, just sitting around like that with nothing to do. I thought about my truck and how I would fix it. I thought about the lease on my house, it will be up in a couple months and I need to find an apartment. I think about how nice it is to get away from work for a little bit. One day while searching through Netflix I find a National Geographic documentary on the Appalachian Trail. I've seen it before, and I loved it. It made fantasize about the time when I will through-hike the trail. When I will take the journey. I watch it again.
I have been toying with the idea of thru-hiking ever since I learned of its existence. I read a book by Chris Townsend. He has hiked the Triple Crown. I read that he has hiked thousands of miles, and I am instantly swept up in the romance and sheer adventure of such an undertaking. I resolve then that someday, when the time is right, I will hike thousands of miles.
I am laying on the couch watching the documentary. I learn that most hikers going northbound depart from Georgia in March and April. "Interesting" I think, because my lease is up in February. All of the sudden it hits me. My lease is going to be up, and I don't have to find an apartment right away. I have no kids, no wife, no one else that I am responsible for. I don't need to spend a year planning. I could hike the AT this April!
My mind is made up. I am doing it, and Iv'e thought of little else since I made that decision. In fact, the AT has possessed me. I have the bug you might say.
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