Day 31 - Mar 23

We are one month in. 31 days. I guess 30 days is a month as well as 28.... but 31 days is a month in my books. It sounds better to say we made it into Virginia in one month anyways. But how about that, Walker and I walked from Amicalola to Damascus in 31 days. My goodness. This whole trip still feels surreal to me. Like I said a few days ago, time feels very differently out here. Other than the two days we took off and rested up, every day has been hiking. I think in regular life you do multiple activities in one day. You drive to work, work, go to lunch, talk to different people, go home, see your family, talk to friends, maybe go to the gym or whatever other activity and then go to bed. Out here, we wake up, tear down camp, eat, walk, eat, walk, set up camp, eat, and go to bed. There are very few distractions. We are experiencing life in a very natural form. Yet even so, we have our own set of restrictions we live by. We do not have access to food, other than what we pack out with us. We are then bound to either hike fast enough to reach our next town for more food, or turn around ( turning around isnt in our gameplan ever, I would be shocked if it ever happened to us ). Water is limited, we are dependent on accurately marked sources or rain for water. We are bound by the call of adventure to hike a certain number of miles a day. In our case, Walker has to be done by July 27th. We cannot simply slack off for a week or even days. 

In 31 days we hiked 470 miles. In the next 31 days we plan on hiking 544. The states of Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee combined were 470 miles. Virginia alone is 544 miles. There are two sides of every thru-hike, the physical challenges and the mental battle. In Virginia, there is a concept called the Virginia blues. By Virginia, the physical ailments have started to subside, as our bodies have grown accustomed to being broken every day. The mental side of the battle now begins, or so I'm told. We shall see what happens. 

I'm very excited to be into Virginia. Reaching Virginia is a major milestone in anyone's thru-hike and I'm no different. I look forward to the future experiences I will have and how my perspective will change due to them. 

By the way, today was more rain and if you couldn't guess what tomorrow's weather is supposed to be... it's more rain. Not sure if I like the fact that I'm more accustomed to being wet than dry... thursday and friday look like 75 degrees though. That might actually feel a little hot. What happened to the 55 degree days? Weather is the most complained about natural phenomena I'm pretty sure. Whatever happens is just what's going to happen. No stopping it, just accept it. I'll tell you what though, its alot easier to accept 70 degrees and sun than it is 40 degrees and rain like today! 

I'll end my rambling. Time to start cranking out some miles in VA! 

Goodnight, 

Tyler M.