When I was twelve years old, the son of one of my dad’s high
school friends thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. My mom mentioned it to me, and though the
conversation couldn’t have lasted more than 5 minutes, it has stayed in my mind
for 25 years.
Long before that list of life goals and dreams was called a “bucket list,” such a list was forming in my mind. What an adventure it would be to hike over 2000 miles of mountains!
Long before that list of life goals and dreams was called a “bucket list,” such a list was forming in my mind. What an adventure it would be to hike over 2000 miles of mountains!
I’m someone who has always felt a deep desire to live unconventionally. I used to tell my high school boyfriend that
I wanted to live somewhere that “smelled far away.” My favorite days were the ones where a
spontaneous road trip took me to a meadow, a mountain, a place where there was
space, and I could breathe. My favorite
vacations were in the mountains, and they involved communing with trees and
rocks and dirt and icy streams.
As a senior in high school, a classmate asked me what I
would be studying in college the following year, and I really didn’t know. I answered that I really didn’t even want to
go to college. I wanted to go to the
woods. She looked at me like I was
crazy, and some part of me felt wrong for what I wanted.
So, I went to college.
I finished a semester early with a solid GPA and a degree tailor made
for my Washington, DC upbringing, Government and Politics. That was 1999; 10 years after the idea of a
thru-hike had entered my mind.
I rushed into a job, a marriage, and homeownership, and I woke up one day in the midst of my life wondering how I would ever do my thru-hike with all of these responsibilities. I felt like I made a series of huge mistakes.
I'm not one to dwell on things I "should have" done, so I just aimed to live life a little differently a little bit at a time, and over the last 15 years, have managed to get my life much closer to how I want it to look and feel. It took a divorce, an eight-year career in law enforcement, a five-year battle with debilitating and "incurable" dermatomyositis, a forced retirement, four Ironman triathlon finishes, and marrying Jeff/Muskrat to get me here, but I am FINALLY ready to take on the adventure that has been on my mind for 25 years!
To the trail!
©2014 Jennifer Magnuson, All Rights Reserved, Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
I rushed into a job, a marriage, and homeownership, and I woke up one day in the midst of my life wondering how I would ever do my thru-hike with all of these responsibilities. I felt like I made a series of huge mistakes.
I'm not one to dwell on things I "should have" done, so I just aimed to live life a little differently a little bit at a time, and over the last 15 years, have managed to get my life much closer to how I want it to look and feel. It took a divorce, an eight-year career in law enforcement, a five-year battle with debilitating and "incurable" dermatomyositis, a forced retirement, four Ironman triathlon finishes, and marrying Jeff/Muskrat to get me here, but I am FINALLY ready to take on the adventure that has been on my mind for 25 years!
To the trail!
©2014 Jennifer Magnuson, All Rights Reserved, Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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