9 Years

We celebrate 9 years of marriage today. And when I say celebrate, I mean it is like any other day because, well, we are on an island with no restaurants or other services. Not that we would do anything different if we weren’t on the island … but I digress. Recently, Backpacker Magazine wrote an article…

Hiking, then and now

We have been getting out and doing more and more hiking these days. Novel concept, you know, since we live ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL. We are trying to re-hike the miles north and south of here so we are experts in our field. We get very specific questions about the trail in the area and…

Celebrating 75 Years of the AT …

The weekend of May 18-20 (yes, I realize that was 2 weeks ago), Deal & I traveled down to Damascus, VA for Trail Days, an annual celebration of long-distance hiking. This could not have happened without 3 things: 1) Scott/Redwing & Marie/Hopeful, the former caretakers, coming in for the weekend to cover the incredibly busy…

Rainy Days

It’s a rainy day here in Chi-town. I appreciate being indoors so much more after doing the trail. When we were on the trail and it was raining, we would sometimes get a phone call, text or e-mail from someone off trail saying they were thinking of us. I always thought that was so nice.…

Post-trail Life

We have been off the AT for more than a week and you would think now that I have easy access to cell service and computers, I would be blogging more often. Clearly not the case. I’ve been so busy … doing practically nothing! Well, we did have the wedding, which was not just a…

Georgia off my mind

As we trekked through the last 70ish miles in Georgia, we got a little bit of everything. We planned a long time ago to slow down and take our time in our last state. I definitely enjoyed doing smaller-mile days, but Deal was more anxious with the goal being so close. In the end, we…

Mile 1909!!!!

Hello from Hot Springs, NC, at Mile 1909.2 on Day 125, where we took a nero (near-zero) to shower & resupply! We are staying at a super-cool hostel; an old Victorian house from the 1800s called Elmer’s Sunnybank Inn. Hot Springs itself is a neat little town, but we did not indulge in the hot…

An Unexpected Zero!

Remember how I said it was unseasonably cold here and we were about to climb to higher elevations where it was even colder? Well, we conferenced and decided to take a ZERO day at the Mountain Harbour B&B/Hostel, where they serve the most unbelievable breakfast!! Fire Marshall & I left it up to Deal, since…

Mile 1716.6 – Day 114

Hello from Damascus, VA, a very hiker-friendly town we walk through. We are at mile 1716.6!!! We are merely 3.7 miles from the end of Virginia and the beginning of Tennessee, but I’m going to pretend we are done and just give you the summary of Virginia prematurely. So wow, I never realized how much…