Paying for Playing

One detail to which we are attending before our departure is taking care of the business of running our home. For example, we intend to eventually convert most of our basement into an apartment. We started by making a driveway on the north side of our yard. It meant researching and applying for a permit, hiring a concrete contractor to take out the curb, put in the culvert and finish the concrete driveway, covering the culvert with gravel. We still need to take out part of the fence and tapering the yard to meet the driveway. Other business that need to be taken care of, besides setting up autopay for all our bills, is prepaying our property taxes that will come due while we are gone, applying and paying conference fees for the Math/Science conference in Oct, forwarding our mail, and updating our email transfers.

Paul went to drag logs from our front yard to our cabin site out of town. He built a log trailer from the axle from our pop-up that had to be replaced last year. It involved taking off the wheels and redrilling new holes and cutting out a section and welding it back together to make it shorter. He's pretty handy!

I chose to stay behind and work on paperwork, errands and AT prep. I sprayed my raincoat with Nikwax waterproofing. I hope it works since there are daily thunderstorms on the AT and a new raincoat would be about $100.

I called the Alaska Permanent Fund office today to find out if visiting elderly parents Outside is an excusable absence. I explained that the parents were 90 and 88. The lady there said that the medical condition needed to be terminal to be justified. I didn't, but wanted to, tell her that at those ages, everything is terminal. She also said that it violates the intent of the 180 day rule to have a residence in another state and to be gone the maximum amount of time allowable (just in case I was a violator, I suppose) . I assured her that I didn't. I didn't give my name anyway, but she probably flagged my phone number. I've heard thru-hiking called "voluntary homelessness".

Here is one of Paul's favorite video illustrating the strength of the wind on the Appalachian Trail. I called it, "A Mighty Wind"....maybe not an original title, but I think you'll find it apropo.



This is what eventually happens. The photo was taken in the Smokies in a section we dubbed "Rootwad Alley". This was not the largest either! (Can you see me?)



It's not too late to make a personal pledge on our hike (see the right hand side). You can pledge per mile or just make a donation to your favorite charity upon the completion of our hike. It's a good thing I didn't pay up yet- I'll owe more to the Rett Syndrome organization when I've walked more. I pledged 10 cents/mile. Just send a comment to me and I'll post it.