You're gonna do what?

On a recent visit to my Mom and Dad's place, I mentioned that I'm going to be pursuing one of my bucket-list goals as soon as my youngest son graduates and moves out.

What goal prompted my Dad to look at me as if he'd heard a strange frequency and exclaim, "You're gonna do what???"

I told them I'm going to attempt a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. a 2,652 mile footpath from Mexico to Canada.

Why would I do such a thing? Well, it's kind of hard to explain. When I was 19 years old I was constantly getting in trouble. I had been kicked off of every couch of every person I knew and things were getting pretty desperate. I may go in to greater detail on that at some point, but in order to keep things tight on this first post I'm going to fast forward to the part where I was essentially homeless and living next to a creek in a tent near Mt. Hood.

One day I decided to walk up the trail a bit and ended up at a 'T' where a sign said Pacific Crest Trail -- Canada 500 miles, Mexico 2150 miles. In that moment, I just wanted to step on to the trail and never look back. That would've been a bad choice as I was wearing a tank top, shorts and my Larry "Grand-Mama" Johnson Basketball Shoes.

Anyway, since that time I've lived a full and interesting story. But the trail has always been there, tugging at my thoughts. So...I'm finally going to listen to the trail.

The downside is, I'm not exactly in my prime. I'll be 46 when I start my thru-hike. I'm currently 300+ pounds. And because of that, my knees aren't exactly, "awesome."

So this will be fun. I'm going to post lots of videos and information, insights and who knows what else as I get ready to tackle the PCT!