Hard, hot and heavy.

i have been hinking for about 4 days since my last post and everything has been going realy good. the hiking has part has been hard but rewarding the last few days. the desert mountains are awsome and there have been a lot of great look out points along the way. matt w. almost steped on a rattle snake the other day and jumped about 5 ft. in the air. he was in front of me so i got a big kick out of it. (hahahah) EXTREAMLY HOT! the heat has been so bad the last few days that we had to pull off the trail and take a day to rest, hence my updating this now. and being that it has been so hot we have been carying about 6 lt. of water, which is realy heavy and not what one wants when faced with a climb of 3000 ft. but whatever, if there no chalenges in ones life, there can be no victory, and a life without victory is empty and blank. so we will drive on in this brain-boiling heat with visions of the sierras dancing in our heads. only 560 more miles of the desert...

Last night in Fresno

Here are a couple of pictures of my going away dinner with my family. First one is me and Matt W. My sisters, Rebekah (in pink) and Leah. My parents, David and Linda. My whole family including my brother-in-law's, Steve (in red) and Danny. And my awesome nephew, Logan.

and here we go...

ok, matt W.'s pack came in and now we are waiting for the heat to die down and we will be hitting the trail around 4:00pm today!!! YEAH!!! 6 days in julian has left me extreamly ready to get back on the trail, booth in mind and body. i'm nolonger sore at all and am super amped to be hiking again. don't get me wrong, julian is an awesome small town, and everyone here has been super kind to us. i guess if we had to be stuck somewhere, this is a great place to be. we will probably hike 14 miles today/night and stop at a water cache and make camp. as soon as i fill up my memory card i will send it to my sister rebekah so she can upload all of the pic.s so far. hope everyone is doing great and i'll write more when i have somthing cool to talk about. peace--M.J.

stuck in the middle with you

ok, where do i start... day one: woke up @ 4:00am and matt w.'s friend becky drove us down to the u.s/mex. border. took all the standered photo's and started our hike. we went 21 miles the first day. that was hard. no blisters at this point, so that was cool, just a little sore. day 2: woke up at 6:30am and hiked about 18 miles. the desert is awesome! yeah its hot(94-105 deg.s) but the hills and mountains are really cool, we have been up to 7,000 ft. so far and the vista views are awesome! everything is still kind of green as the rain season has just ended and there are lots of cool purple/yellow/blue flowers everywhere! i have seen allot of snakes sunning right on the trail. I'm in Julian ca. right now waiting for matt w.'s new pack to come in the mail(ALL of his gear got stolen 3 days ago, but that is a long story and i only have 10 min.s left on this computer at the library,) we should be heading out some time this afternoon! i can't wait, we have been stuck in this town(a real-life maybury r.f.d., we now know all the locale's, great people) for 4 days and i cant wait to get back on the trail! I'll write more soon and send it to my sister Rebekah for her to post, along with new photos! sweet, i just got 30 more min.s on this computer! ok, so matt got his pack with ALL of his gear stolen the other day. he talked to the police and they went all over town looking for it, but to no avail. the pack is gone and has been morned. so a lady that works for the local police department really felt for matt and what had happen, so she called the manager at the local R.E.I. and told him what had happened. he thought that was awful and said to come in and he would hook matt up. so she drove us an hour down to the r.e.i., and he let matt go thru all of the used and returned gear that they keep for a twice a year sale and gave him more then 50% off of the sale price on everything!!! he was able to get almost all of the things he needs for around $500. (probably saved $1,500 thanks R.E.I.!!!) he also called the guys at six moons who make the back pack that matt had and told them what had happened, and they shipped him out a new pack just like his old one and gave him 50% off! thanks Six Moons!!! so now we are just waiting for it to come in and we will be outta here and back on the trail WOOO HOOO!!! the trip, up until the great Julian backpack theft( every one in town knows about it and its all the talk around here) has been really great! only one blister so far and i was quick to wrap it up and now it is no more. i've been super sore in the mornings, but that has been going away after about one mile.( when i say "go away" i mean it goes from sharp-bash your brain on a rock to make it stop pain, to a deeper/duller pain that is more tolerable) the day before we stoped here in Julian, i was walking down the trail when a chipmunk ran out in front of me and into a bush that i had just brushed by. that was a big mistake for my litte furry friend , for apon entering said bush, a rattle snake bit him and he came running out screaming and flailing about like a drunk man until he fell to the ground and, twitching, died. then that old snake came out to collect his lunch, put half of "chip" in his mouth, and went back to the bush to dine. (as all of this was happening that song from the lion king "the circle of life " started to play and i cryed one salty tear and morned my fallen, furry friend.) gotta go, write more soon. peace--M.J.

i just got back from the bookstore. its 10:36pm and i have had way to much coffee. i have been reading "the kid who climbed everest" by bear grylls. it's been a really good read so far and has gotten me pumped up about the trip! i think to myself "if this 23 year old kid can climb mt. everest @29,000 ft., i can do this easy!" but i know it won't. it is going to be the physically hardest thing i have ever done by far. but that's why i feel this burning need to do this, to challenge myself, to overcome and gain the wisdom that is waiting on the mountain top. it is said that when one is well, they have a thousand wishes, but when one is sick, they have only one. i am sick. my heart has been riped from my body and throne into the grinder by the one whom i loved the most. my body is still recovering from a tumor i had removed that i was told might have been cancer. and my spirit was crushed daily from a job that left me cold and dirty inside. i have one wish. to become well. i have no doubt that this trip was meant for me at this precise time in my life and that through this process of physical challenge and introspection of my mind and heart, i will reach my journeys end whole and renewed. it's strange, starting over. the last four years of my life i was on this one track, with a few reachable goals for the life i was carving out. i had a lovely wife, a nice house, two insane dogs, the cars/toys ect. after two and 1/2 years, my wife threw her hands in the air and walked out of our marriage, saying only that she no longer wanted to be married anymore. thinking back on it is surreal, i was working a job i hated, and had more bills then money. but i didn't mind, because i was doing it all for her, for us, and for the family we had planed on having. now that is all gone, and although my heart still hurts, a new since freedom and adventure fills me to my core. something i know my life has been lacking for a long time. so now instead of looking at my future with a life full of jobs i hate to make ends meet, mortgage payments that hang over one like the blackest of clouds, and a mind set to "consume", i am starting the life i now believe i was meant to live. from the start, i knew this blog was going to get "heavy". all my life i have tried to be very honest and straight forward to those close to me, and to leave things out like the above would be cheating you and myself out of the real adventure, not the physical journey but that of the heart and mind. way. too. much. coffee.
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10:30:00 PM
by matt
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yeah, that sounds cool!

no intro, I'll just get to the good stuff and then go back if i find time. cool. 4 months ago my good friend Matt w. told me he was going on this trip. hiking. for five months. 2,650 miles. at the time i said "yeah,that sounds cool" maybe I'll hook up with you for a week or two. as time went by and my life went through a lot of twist and turns, i came to think that it was a great idea to just say screw it and do the whole darn thing with him. the hiking trip i am talking about is the Pacific Crest Trail, and it runs from the U.S./Mexico border north thru 700 miles of dessert, up into the Sierras, up on into OR. and W.A. and ends just inside of Canada...2,650 miles. yeah, so i quit my job that i hated(bar tending, getting paid to get people drunk doesn't really make you feel good about yourself at the end of the day) bought a bunch of really cool gear and have spent the last 2 months at the book store learning how to not die in the wild. i am really looking forward to this trip, a lot of REALLY bad stuff has happened in my life over the last 5 months and i know this is just the thing i need in my life right now. Matt w. is flying in tomorrow from T.N. and then we will spend about a week getting all of our last min. stuff taken care of and then its south to the border!!! i will be updating this blog from the trail via the Internet and my awesome sister Rebekah with trail notes, photos, maps, video, and maybe some other cool stuff if i get the time. i will also post if we will be in a certain area and you can hook up with us and do some awesome hiking this summer! i'll upload some photos of my gear and supplys in a few days.