IN THESE WOODS: 1 MONTH

WOW. We are almost exactly 1 month from boarding a plane to San Diego. Nerves are high, anxieties through the roof, anticipation, night panic, eagerness, pure terror and intermittent excitement. Mostly I feel overwhelmed but there are moments of pure feeling-lessness. It doesn't seem real. Is this really going to happen? Are we really going to be greeting sunrise at the border of Mexico a month from now? What will those first steps feel like? OKAY.

I thought I would touch on a few things we've been doing to prepare for our trip - although, honestly, underprepared-ness is the dominant feeling resonating within me these days...

In terms of gear - we are SOLID. We have all of our gear and have been accumulating it for quite some time. The REI Used Gear Sales were our primary source of gear for years! We have been going to these sales since 2009. Almost everything of mine is used (or lightly used) and I saved thousands of dollars this way.

In terms of food - we are only slightly panicking. We have a long way to go in terms of shopping, packing and shipping our first mail drops to ourselves. Not even going to worry about it. We'll be fine.

Our travel plans have been solidified! We will be flying to San Diego on April 20th where we will be retrieved by two Trail Angels (Scout and Frodo). We'll be put up overnight at their house (so amazing), eat dinner with other hikers, and get shuttled to the trailhead at 6am the following morning. Couldn't be happier about this arrangement!

Training. Training has been going slowly. We have been going on regular "training hikes" but I don't think any amount of exercise is going to make me feel prepared enough to hike 20+ miles a day. We will hopefully be ramping up our training hike intensities this final month... Quitting my job ahead of time would help...

Here are some photos from our training hikes over the past few months: