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.