Portland, ME

Woohoo! My older brother Bushnell is home from the Marines! He surprised us, driving up from CA without telling anybody he was coming, and drove us to the airport in time to fly out at 1:40am on Aug 28th. I wish that I had more time to spend with him before taking off!
We spent 20 hours traveling, with stops in Pheonix, AZ, and Charlotte, NC, but we made it to Maine.

Woke up to a sunny, hot, 85 degree F day. Our friend Jim Gallea picked us up and gave us a place to stay on his boat, cool. He has family visiting, and we all spent the day at the park and at the beach. Ending with a delicious lobster, mussel, scallop, and salad dinner. Yum!
Gearing up to start our hike with one of the toughest mountain climbs on the trail...

Two More Days!

Only two more days until we fly out and still a long list of things to do... starting to realize what all we are getting ourselves into!
Great weather for the family picnic today. Thank you to all who were able to come! I was glad we were able to get together since we will be out on the trail during  the holidays.
Planning and packing for meals has been interesting. How much will we eat?... How much can we carry?
I was able to spend a couple days with Mom and Dad Seavey, experimenting with the dehydrator. That was a big help. We now have some light, tasty shriveled edibles, and some other goodies, for the 100 mile wilderness in Maine. And the rest of the trip. Mom will be resupplying us with maildrops every so often.
We have been packing, repacking, and packing again. Trying to keep our total pack weight under 30lbs. Do we really need all that food and water?!
Our weeks worth of AT training has been going well; putting in miles on the local trails. It will take a while to get in shape though I'm thinking. Would make better time if it wasn't for the berries along the way...

I'm not ready to leave yet! But I want to be done with all these preparations so we can start hiking already!

getting ready!

Fishing is still going incredibly well! All those fish are keeping us busy and worn out... We did find some time to shop at REI for some much needed gear, and even got to try it out hiking the Johnson Pass trail! All went well, except for when the dog ran into the porcupine- not fun. Happily, she has a home in Seward for the winter.
I(Tekla) have a few days in between fishing to get some things together. Hoping I'm thinking of everything important! Haven't had time to try out the new dehydrator yet... bummer.
So, less than two weeks to go. On August 28th we fly into Portland, Maine where our friend Jim will pick us up and deposit us at the trailhead near Katahdin Falls.
From there we start walking. The AT is about 2,179 miles long, passes through 14 states, and, according to the AT Conservancy website, takes approximately 5 million footsteps to walk the entire length! We are setting out to see how far we make it.