A Final Note from Missouri

May 2012, in St. Charles, Missouri, getting ready to take
a 20-mile walk for the first time together. So long ago…

The Road goes ever on and on,

Over rock and under tree,

By caves where sun has never shone,

By streams that never find the sea;

Over snow by winter sown,

And through the merry flowers of June,

Over grass and over stone,

And under mountains in the moon.

~J.R.R. Tolkien

Tomorrow around 3:00, Zachary and I will board a plane that’s headed to San Diego, the first step of our great adventure. We’ll hang out with my sister for four or five days, hoping to hit the Pacific Crest Trail either next Wednesday or Friday. 

I’m not sure how much I’m going to be blogging for a while. I will have gobs and gobs of blog-worthy material (Lord willing!), but I don’t want to distract myself from the PCT hike by trying to “keep up” and mess with technology. I think this trip will be much better if I soak it all in, journal personally along the way, and then piece all my thoughts together after the trail is over. I hope to post an extended day-by-day blog series about the trip after we get back to Missouri. In the meantime, I may post something every once in a while, but it’s best not to count on any sort of consistency.

My writing sounds matter-of-fact and unemotional because that’s how I feel right now. This trip is surreal. It is by far the most surreal trip I’ve ever taken. How can my brain find a mental box to fit a trip that involves walking 2,600 miles and sleeping in a tent for five months? Right now, I just want the packing (oh, so much packing! more packing than I can stand!) to be done. 

In the meantime, I write a couple more words from this town, my town, with a roof to shield me from the wide open sky, and deciduous trees, and Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken, and a charming 18th-century historic district, and the sense of home in every unexpected temperature change or blooming magnolia. And then I’m back to packing. Oh, so much packing.

Love you guys.

~~~

Packing Resupply Boxes…

…is a lot of work. But with five days left until we head to California, we’ve got to finish it soon!

The PCT and the Pinterest Syndrome

I often read blogs about homemaking and child-rearing and such (it’s in my future, Lord willing!). A common theme runs through them all: blogging mothers encouraging other moms not to be intimidated by the “perfect parents” they see on Pinterest or Facebook. Everyone else seems to have it all together. But most of them don’t. None of us is perfect. Just focus on doing the best you can.

With the PCT a week and a half away, I’m starting to understand that concept on a deeper level. 

I’ve been eyeing everyone else’s blogs about their gear lists and pack weights and budgets and happy little 20-mile training day-hikes on Mount Kilimanjaro, and I start panicking. We’re doing everything wrong! We don’t even have all our gear bought yet! We’ve barely packed any boxes! We are going to fail! 

And, oddly enough, the parenting blogs come in most handy during those panic attacks. You don’t have to have it all together. Don’t compare yourself to the people who seem to be doing better. Just do the best you can with what you have. We’re all in this together.

~~~

The Breaking of the Fellowship

I’ve sat down about five times to write this post. Five. That is today’s magic number, I think. Although Zachary and I aren’t leaving for the Pacific Crest Trail until a week from tomorrow, it’s five days until I have to say goodbye to three of the most important guys in my life: my dad and two brothers.

It started with Christian (well, actually, it started with Mary, the youngest, who moved to California two years ago. Then Zach and I continued it by planning this PCT hike. But I still hold that Christian is the catalyst).

Christian is the second of us four siblings, about a year older than me, and he’s going to Yellowstone for the summer as a kitchen employee at one of the lodges. Eric (the oldest, the unquestionable benevolent dictator of all our childhood games) and Dad took the opportunity to drive him out there so they could have a little road trip. 

Eric and Dad won’t return before Zach and I hop a plane to San Diego. And when Zach and I return, Eric will have taken his wife Sarah and moved to Nashville.

Of course, it’s ridiculous to say, “Nothing will be the same when we return.” Life flows on and changes whether we notice or not. The Missouri River, one of the constants of my life, never has the same water as it did the day before… (Are you about to burst into a song from Pocahontas? ‘Cause I am.) So it is with a family. But in five days, the river’s course is changing. 

People have always marveled that we four siblings were such good friends. Eric, Christian, Lisa, Mary, stair-steps in both age and height. We homeschooled together all morning, played together all afternoon, and read together all evening. We were almost never apart. We fought like crazy, but always had to work things out and learn to get along, for survival’s sake. “If you can get along with your siblings,” Mom said, “you can get along with anyone.” That kind of constant fighting and reconciling and adapting and adjusting strengthened the bonds between us in a powerful way.

We’re all adults now (at least we like to pretend we are), and none of us talk as much as we used to, but the bond is still there. And with Eric in Nashville, Christian in Yellowstone, me on the Pacific Crest Trail, Mary in San Diego, and Mom and Dad in St. Louis, we are being flung to the four winds. The stable core of This Is What Does Not Change in Missouri is ruptured. All this change is happening at once. Some of us will regroup in St. Louis after the summer, but the river is changing course. We will be in a completely new channel.

So in the midst of packing boxes and worrying about gear and filling out last-minute paperwork, I find myself often sniffing away tears, or getting unreasonably upset over things, or feeling unable to do anything, or breaking down over nothing. The fellowship is breaking up, and it doesn’t matter that I am so excited for Christian’s summer job and Eric’s music career in Nashville— it’s still hard. 

And since I seem utterly incapable of finishing this blog post, I will end with a pearl of wisdom from my brother Christian: “Life is like a rollercoaster: there’s a lot of screaming and someone usually throws up.”

Mary, me, Christian, Eric. 2011, I believe.

A Sampling of My Pre-PCT Activities

1. All the usual stuff: assembling last-minute gear, working on packing list, testing our stove, packing food boxes.

Which shoes should I bring? Such a brain twister…

2. Second-guessing every single piece of gear (except my Deuter backpack. That thing is awesome).

3. Constantly searching for PCT-related stuff amongst the jumble of junk that we just moved. (As I wrote the previous sentence, Zach asked me, “Do you know where the packing tape is?”)

4. Eating tons of food.

5. Scrambling to get editing work out of the way so I can focus on PCT stuff.

6. Walking without a backpack and feeling guilty for doing so.

7. Watching Stargate or reading books instead of working on PCT stuff and feeling guilty for doing so.

8. Staring in despair at our disorganized room but, instead of organizing it, going walking without a backpack and watching Stargate and reading books— and feeling guilty for doing so.

I’m sensing a theme here…

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: A Round-Up of Packing Tips

With California less than two weeks away, packing has been on my brain lately! Of course, packing for a backpacking trip is different than I’m used to, but I still think some basic rules apply. So I’ve included a round-up of some of my blogs about packing. 

The llama thinks you should pack light.

Packing light: an introduction

A sample light packing list (non-camping)

Five things I always pack

Five things I never pack

Seven helpful travel foods

~~~

In Which My Crazy Husband Cuts Off My Hair

Today, I decided the time for my pre-PCT haircut had come. I’ve been growing my hair out for over two years now, but not taking very good care of it, so it was mostly just a mass of split-ends that I was tired of dealing with. So I asked my husband to cut my hair. Hijinks ensued.

~~~

Climate Control (a poem for the PCT)

It’s ridiculous, you know.

This sitting on the couch

and watching Stargate SG-1 

and sipping tea 

and eating toast.

It’s ridiculous, you know:

This air-conditioned

snug and windowed

house with neat green shutters.

The running water,

hot for showers;

tables, chairs and dinner plates;

homemade bread with softened butter,

clothing choices, scrambled eggs.

Five months. No beds.

Open sky.

Polyester clothing.

Raw-faced wind and blistered feet

and walking, always walking—

It’s ridiculous, you know.

~~~

Doubt and Determination

On March 31st, Zach and I grabbed the last few bags and boxes from our townhouse, lingered for a while in the empty kitchen with the avocado-colored fridge and stove, then left our keys and forwarding address on the counter and shut the door behind us for the last time. 

I've never been very good with choices, either…

It was a bit traumatic for both of us. Both of us hate moving. Both of us hate change. Both of us are quite aware that we are giving up a lovely place to live in order to go off on a somewhat crazy adventure that may or may not work out. 

On our way back to my parents’ house, where we are staying until we leave on the 19th, I told Zach, “I don’t really mind giving up the stability. I’m just going to really miss that house.” And upon more reflection, I believe it’s true. We still have a certain sense of stability, thanks to my family. (We are in the habit of working together to bridge the gaps between family members’ dreams and their lack of finances.) I’m not worried about returning to Missouri and finding another house and surviving on a smaller income than before. 

In the end, I just don’t like change. I have yet to meet a person who does.

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Seven Steps to Prepare for a Big Trip

Many people would love to take some sort of once-in-a-lifetime trip, and many people who are capable of taking one never even try because they assume it’s out of the question. I’m not one of those people who naïvely states, “Anyone can travel.” It’s simply not true. My mom has a health condition that makes travel for her almost impossible. Some people are struggling to feed their children with food stamps. Some people are the sole caretaker for a sick relative, or raising six kids under the age of six, or in any number of situations in which travel is simply unfeasible.

But, with all that said, I do believe that the majority of middle-class people in America are capable of taking an extended trip. Most people don’t want to, or have no reason to. But the people who want to travel but assume that it’s impossible need to understand that travel doesn’t have to be as expensive or difficult or extravagant as they think. Here are seven steps (and a host of links) to show what I think is most important in preparing for a trip.

1. Pay off debt. Debt is crippling. Debt is paralyzing. Debt makes you a slave to something until you’ve paid it off. If you have any debt of any sort, please pay it off as soon as possible. If you prioritize this, you will give yourself a lot more freedom.

Antelope Island, Utah, spring 2011

2. Save money. If you can possibly help it, don’t go into debt for a trip. Here are some tips for saving money for a trip. And some tips for saving money on the road here and here and here.

3. Find a way to make money on the road. In a long-term trip, making money along the way can be invaluable. For instance, my brother is spending this summer working as kitchen help at Yellowstone National Park. Many national parks will hire employees for the summer. Several world travelers I’ve met have funded their trips by getting temporary work along the way, anything from bar-tending and dishwashing to goat shearing and flyer distributing.

4. Talk to someone who’s already taken a trip similar to your dream trip. Plenty of people have traveled the world, hiked the Appalachian Trail, hitchhiked across America, hopped across Africa on a pogo stick (okay, maybe not the last one)… and the Internet makes it easier than ever to track down these people. Listen to their advice and talk to them in person if you can.

Hiking in Oregon, early 2012

5. Bring closure to as many obligations as possible. When I first decided I wanted to start traveling, I was teaching five different classes. I immediately informed my administrators that I would finish up the semester, and then be done. It took me about eight months before I was able to tie up all the loose ends in my life and hit the road.

Kröller-Müller Museum, Netherlands,
summer 2012

6. Enlist the support of family and friends. I know there are some people who can take all these amazing trips on their own, but most of us have a strong network of family and friends. Tell stories and find people who are willing to support your dream. For instance, in order to help us out for our PCT adventure, my parents have let Zachary and me move in with them until we leave for California on the 19th, so we are saving a month’s rent. Numerous friends are storing our furniture and other stuff. We couldn’t do it without all of them.

7. Figure out if this is something you really want to do. Anything big you do in your life will necessarily exclude other big things you could be doing. If an amazing trip is your priority, only a few things can stand in the way. It almost always comes down to this one idea: what are you willing to give up for your dream?

~~~