Support from Home (Posted by Kelly)

Ron and I are very blessed to have both of our families supporting us to help make our big hike possible. A few nights ago, my sister, Eileen, called and told me that she's worried about two things. The first was whether or not we are allowed to take toilet paper with us. Her second query was how we are getting to Springer Mountain, Georgia, to start the hike. By the end of the conversation, she was relieved to know that we can choose the luxury of TP. We'll probably remove the cardboard tube to make our packs even LIGHTER. (Every ounce counts!) Eileen also volunteered to drive us to Georgia and see us off! That offer sums up Eileen's caring nature, and we appreciate all of the generous offers from family and friends. Mom and Dad Gaulden are sharing the basement of their brand new home to store our furniture! Mom and Dad Cirincione are taking care of Casey, who is too old to join us on the hike.


Aunt Peg and Uncle Ed have opened up their lake house for us, which is right off the trail in New Jersey. We're blessed to have people along the way in North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Vermont, and Maine who have offered us showers, meals, and a place to get a good night's sleep. Thanks to everyone for being so supportive and excited for us! Please feel free to join us for any leg of the trip. (Both Mom C. and Mom G. have already told us that they'll stay at the Hilton while the Dads hike with us. They'll meet up with us somewhere OFF the trail for breakfast.)



Casey will be well into her fourteenth year of life by the time we leave for the trail. We wish she could come along, but she'll have a blast in her old stomping grounds with Mom and Dad C.

From the Other Hiker

Thanks, Ron for starting our A.T. blog and for posting that oh-so-unflattering photo of me from our last hike. This is my first time ever writing on this public venue because I'm just now getting over my fear of it. I'm fairly certain that I get this quality from my mom who believes that she can blow up the planet simply by pressing the wrong button on a computer. Mind you, my fear is not of launching some sort of rocket from this laptop; rather, I'm a little apprehensive about publicizing to the cyber-world that Ron and I will be out in the wild, quite vulnerable, for six months. So to put my mind at ease, I would like to say the following to any criminals or wackos who happen to be reading this post: 1) While we are on our trip, you cannot take advantage of us by stealing our possessions back home. Actually, we hardly have any possessions. Besides, we are storing what little we have in an undisclosed location while we are gone. After all, you can't rightly steal from people who will be homeless and jobless when they return from their trot in the wilderness. 2) Please do not use the information on this blog to attempt to locate us while we are in the woods. We will be ravenous while on this hike, and I must say that if any crazy person tries to attack us, I might just have to eat him first. Also, we will have an unfortunate stench while thru-hiking. You would be the craziest crazy person to come close to us. Now that I consider it, Ron's stench alone will probably kill you right then and there before I eat you.

With that said, I feel much better about this blog and our hiking preparations in general. We are still seven months away from our departure, but it has already changed the way I think about simple things. For example, when I'm falling asleep to a torrential rain outside I think, "It sure is nice to have a roof over our head and a nice warm bed. Humm, funny that I'll be sleeping outside in weather like this, fighting the mice for a dry spot soon enough." Sometimes I think how pleasant it is to have textured food to eat. I mean, never before did I think about how nice it is to eat baked potatoes that actually are shaped like...potatoes. Fancy that! Sure, the flat, one dimensional hiking meals we've dined on in the past never bothered us, but that's probably because we didn't have to eat it every meal for weeks on end. It's nice to have home-cooked meals that don't involve adding boiling water to watch the mush turn to...moist mush. Voila!

Preparing for this hike has already changed my life because for once, I'm not getting ready for another school year. Typically at this time in August, I'm making unit plans and wondering if any of my students will have criminal records. (Much like the people who BETTER NOT be reading this site to learn our private information.) No, for once I'm preparing for REAL survival. "Survival" will no longer mean teaching 39 sixth graders in one room. "Survival" will no longer mean finding a way to attend two meetings at once and still make it to bus duty. No, in seven short months, "survival" will mean staying warm enough and dry enough to sleep through the night even though there was snow up to my waste in the Smokey Mountains. "Survival" will mean having enough food until we get to the next road crossing. This is the bare necessities, baby, and for some strange reason, I'm truly excited about it!

So this concludes my first-ever post. Thank you, Ron, for teaching me how to access the website. Otherwise, someone would need to write a "Blogging for Dummies" book. Come to think of it, there probably already is a "Blogging for Dummies" book, which means I need the "Finding a Blogging for Dummies Book for Dummies."

Thanks for reading! I'm off to walk Casey in Freedom Park on this glorious day. And for all of you wackos out there, "walking in Freedom Park" means the exact opposite of what it sounds like. That's code for "walking my 200 pound flesh-eating dog in some undisclosed location." Down, Casey! DOWN!

Customer Service

On my quest to get the lightest gear for our thru I purchased a Tarptent Double Rainbow tent. I made it on the early bird list to get one of the first models released. However, when the tent arrived and I went to seam seal it I found that some of the stitching was questionable, and one of the tie-outs broke. Quite disappointed I wrote an email to the company and sent pictures of the broken tie out. Henry Shires who owns the company responded and offered to send me a new tent and shipping label to return the damaged one. What amazed me were two things: the promptness of his reply which was on a Sunday (the same day that I sent the email) and that he is sending the shipping label with the new tent. He's completely trusting me with two of his products. I thought that was pretty cool. I had previously read that his customer support was top notch but had no clue it was this good. I didn't have to argue or beg or anything. In his first email response he said he'd send me a new one if that would be what I desired. Plus one for this fellow.

Now if you go to the link above and check out the tent — it is freaking awesome! 2.5pounds and tons of room for two with so many different pitching options. I now have 3 tents one that weighs about 8 pounds (yikes) one around 4.5 pounds and my latest 2.5 pounds. Maybe this weekend I'll go into detail the gear that Kelly and I will be using for our hike next March.