Time to Get this Thing Done

Our visit with son Phil and his family has been great.  We celebrated granddaughter Eliza's one month birthday (a low key celebration) yesterday.  Getting a chance to hold her has been very special.  I also had some special time with grandson Austin, bicycling up to the Seven Eleven for some treats, having him spend the night with us at the hotel several nights, and doing a little hiking.  Phil and Andrea are great parents.  Andrea is truly a supermom in handling an active four year old while caring for a newborn.  Phil has taken weeks of time off to be there and pitch in.

Phil and I spent some quality project time building a front deck on their home.  It turned out very nicely, if I may say so. 

The Grandparents enjoying Eliza on the new deck

It is hard to believe that it is time to leave tomorrow.  Anne and I will leave on a noonish flight to Portland and from there we will take red-eye flights in separate directions - she back home and me to Boston.  My sister- and brother-in-law George and Mary will meet me in Boston and shuttle me to New Hampshire to resume the hike where I had left off.

On many occasions during the hike I have had the feeling that things are just as they are meant to be, and that all I have to do is keep on walking.  Here are three things about my resuming the hike that have struck me as "just meant to be".  When I told George yesterday that the place I needed to get to in New Hampshire was Lincoln, he said his sister has a house up there.  We are planning to drive up there and spend a night in her home before I resume the hike.  The first shelter I will come to when I resume hiking is called the Eliza Brook shelter.  One of the first cross trails I will see is called the Fishing Jimmy trail.  You may remember that in an early post I had said I was dedicating this hike to my dear friend Jimmy Bray, with whom I spent many enjoyable hours participating in one of our shared activities... fishing.

While we were out in Oregon, we had the chance to rent a couple of cabins in the mountains southwest of Ashland with Phil's family.  The cabins were very near the Pacific Crest Trail, and Phil, Austin and I hiked briefly on the trail.  Getting back on the trail got me excited about getting back and finishing the AT.

We have finalized the arrangements for son Kevin to join me for the last miles of the hike.  He will get himself to a hostel in Millinocket, ME and spend one night there before being shuttled back into the 100-mile wilderness to join me.  I think we are both excited about that.  He has been out shopping for the last of the supplies he will need.

I had said in my last post that I was trying to strike a balance between giving my body the rest it needed to heal and getting enough exercise to stay in hiking shape.  I have to confess that I leaned heavily toward the rest side.  Phil and I were very active anaerobically building the deck, but I have done close to zero aerobic exercise.  We'll see what price is to be paid for that in a few days.