We’re heading out at the end of the week. I’m excited, scared, happy, worried – a potpourri of feelings. It has been a quiet and mostly peaceful winter. We’ve been in major hermit mode (not unusual for us), mostly just reading or working on the website and doing lots of short walks in the woods. It has been a good winter.
Our general plan is something of a repeat of last year: start out visiting friends and family, heading slowly west. We’ll hike a bit on the Grand Enchantment Trail in Arizona, look for rock art and ruins in Arizona and Texas, spend a couple of months exploring Utah, thruhike the Idaho Centennial Trail (if possible), then head up to Canada to finish the Great Divide Trail. It’s a lot of hiking, which is great, though I’m not sure how we’ll hold up physically.
Mentally, my concern is simply that last year was so good, how can we hope to match it? Last year we skimmed the surface, seeing and doing a lot, but not in great depth. There were a few backpacking trips, including 560 miles on the GDT, but most of our travels were either by car or short day hikes. This year I’d like to explore Utah in more depth, going to some of the less obvious, less touristy areas. I have a very long list of possible places to visit, but Jim hasn’t done much thinking about it yet so I have no idea what we’ll actually end up doing. He has been busy with other things, so left the planning to me. Jim did tell me he wants to take it easier than last year. I doubt we actually will. I’m really wondering how we can make this year as wonderful an experience as the past two years have been. I am very much looking forward to hiking in Idaho. No one has yet thruhiked the ICT; it would be fun to be the first. From my research, I think it will be a beautiful and very challenging hike. I’m excited about exploring that part of the Rockies.
Jim: I'm glad to be starting a new chapter, but I'll also miss the family and the dogs. They're the only real ties we have here anymore. It's been a "comfortable" winter, but we've been getting restless so it's time to scrape off the moss and start rolling again.
I'm really looking forward to both Utah and Idaho - the one we know fairly well, the other is pretty much an unknown. New country - good.
So...... back on the road again!!
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Created: 1 Jan 2009
Revised: 30 Sept 2016
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