What a Holiday Season!

It's been far too long and we apologize for that. Around mid November both of our lives got pretty hectic especially with Chesley(my older brother who will be meeting up with us on the trail) in town for Thanksgiving, shopping and working for Christmas, and New Years(which consisted of a tree falling on my father's truck. Arg!). Despite the chaotic 2 months they were good ones. Christmas brought a lot of trail essentials including Timberland Chocorua hiking boots for both Lindsay and me, a few more solar powered chargers, and a few memory cards in addition to some Smartwool Phd socks(which are absolutely amazing!).

So it stands right now we only need a few more things. Mainly clothing but also meds for Chaser. Speaking of, Chaser got fixed this past Monday. He took it like a champ. I really believe it'll help on the trail. It's been needing to be done anyway. We are glad it got taken care of before the adventure.

We have been practicing any chance we get which are usually the days we both have off. We have been packing our packs out and heading to Tunica Hills aka Clark Creek where the climbs and descents are as close to the AT as we are gonna get. It's an all-the-way around roughly 4 mile trail. We got to test some of our gear which went great. The SteriPen, which uses UV light to kill bacteria in water obtained from streams, must've worked because we never experienced unusual stomach issues after use. Our hiking boots are awesome and so are our Black Diamond trekking poles. They really do make a difference. You can transfer a lot of the weight to your arms easing up on your legs and that's crucial.

One last thing. We've been dehydrating pretty nonstop. Mangos, pineapples, strawberries, all kinds of apples, bananas, tangerines, satsumas, deer jerky, hamburger meat, chicken and much more to come. We've been recording a lot of our training(as training) and dehydrating. There's a couple videos coming soon. Just need to find a little extra time to sit, convert video appropriately, and then edit it into something you'd like to watch and share.

One more last thing. I was awarded volunteer of the month by the awesome people at Appalachian Trail Conservancy for the videos I put together on trail acquisition for them! Article: Colton Calloway - January Volunteer of the Month. It was win win. I have so many facts and tidbits in my head about the trail after editing those videos. It's nice to chat about the trail to people who are unaware of it's existence. They are well aware of it by the time we finish. They are usually so fascinated. That's because it IS fascinating. I just can't wait to be on the trail, in the woods, with my girlfriend and dog others who share the same goal.

2 Months 20 Days.

And this movie was great and extremely helpful. Another great Christmas gift!