This journey began back in the Fall of 2009 when my friend, Cathy, called up and said, “Hey. Let’s go hike the Appalachian Trail. There are 14 states and we can do one state a year until we finish.” I replied, “Okay”. No questions asked. We had no clue what we were doing. We bought gear, copied a few pages from the AT Guide, had our husbands drop us off at the approach trail at Amicalola, and off we hiked. We had a week off work and hiked to Dick’s Creek Gap, where my husband picked us up; dirty, smelly, hungry, but with smiles on our faces and thumbs up as to say “it’s all good–we did it”.  Our pack weights were ridiculous. Mine was 40 lbs and Cathy’s was about 35. We had the time of our lives.  We met few, but great people.  We had no idea that there was a “thru-hiker” season, which was in the Spring, hence the few people. We really knew nothing about the trail, and if I’m honest, we were pretty slow to learn.  What we did know, however, was that we loved it.  We loved the outdoors, we loved the people we met, we loved the challenge, we loved the freedom.  We laughed so much at each other and our mistakes that had there been many people, they would have probably asked us to leave.  Dick’s Creek was our finish line this time out, but we WOULD be back.  We decided to revise our plan of hiking one state a year, and hike twice a year, going out in Spring and Fall when we could get off work and get in as many miles as we could in the amount of time we had off.  So, we did this until we reached Wood’s Hole Hostel, about 624 miles of the trail, in the Fall of 2012, where our lives took different turns and we couldn’t make it work as a team anymore.  We both decided to continue on, but we had very different schedules.  I decided to try to cover as many miles as I could. In 2013, I hiked 510 miles and in 2014, 435 miles, which leaves me roughly 624 miles to complete the 2189.2 miles of the trail. I have met lifelong friends on the AT, and I have had the time of my life.  Now, in 2015, I am heading back out to hopefully continue on to Katahdin, Maine–Big K as I call it–the top of the mountain–the finale–the end of the Appalachian Trail. I invite you to come along with me.