“Life is not tried, it is merely survived if you’re standing outside the fire.” – Garth Brooks & Jenny Yates
After my wife, Andrea, died in 2021, I had to deal with that whole “mortality” thing and I did not like what I was seeing. I had not done any exercise since I stopped playing soccer about 6 years prior and I got winded walking up one flight of stairs. I also looked back on the past 30 years and realized that I had a lot of regrets. I was a workaholic, which caused me to miss a lot of weddings, funerals, graduations, birthday parties, etc. Add to all that the trauma of loosing my partner of 35 years and general depression around trying to figure out what the hell do I do with my life, and I decided that I needed to make some major changes.
I retired on January 3, 2022 at 53 years old and started working on Life Part II. A major part of that included my desire to become much more healthy as well as to NOT putter around the house in my retirement. I wanted to get to a physical and mental place where I could truly enjoy life, try new things, and challenge myself. I have never enjoyed exercise for the sake of exercise (i.e. going to the gym). I decided to embrace hiking for the health/exercise benefits plus the “Spiritual” side of things.
I started off with 1.5 miles being difficult. Fast forward two and a half years…I have lost 25 lbs, I hike 30-45 miles a week with a 28lb pack on moderate-to-difficult terrain, and I eat better than I have in years (not a health food nut, just generally better eating habits). I have hiked/explored lots of new areas up and down the mid-Atlantic, and I am enjoying life. At some point along the way I realized that I had become a hiking addict. I love finding ever more challenging terrain as well as that “endorphin high” that comes from pushing my body.
With A LOT of support of my new life partner, Dana, I decided to try a long-distance thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail (AT) in the spring of 2024. I spent over a year training for that hike, learning about long-distance logistics, and mentally getting ready to be gone from my friends and family for 6 months. Unfortunately I also injured my foot on a training hike and lost 9 months due to surgery, recovery, and re-training. Dana played a huge part in getting me through all that including shuttling me around the mid-Atlantic for pickups, drop offs, and resupply. My own personal trail angel who earned the trail name Pitcrew for all her support before and during my AT thru-hike.
Speaking of trail names, I go by the trail name of “Orange Man”. More on that later but it revolves around wearing blaze orange to avoid getting accidentally shot, and not anything to do with a sports team.
Pitcrew and I half-joke that my new job in retirement is to hike. My goal is to do one big thru-hike every other year starting with the AT in 2024. In the years where I am not dong the single big hikes, I am trying to spend about 6 months on trail, but in smaller chunks anywhere from 3 days to 7 weeks at a time. I am trying to get in as many big 4-6 month thru-hikes before Pitcrew retires in 2030.
Once Pitcrew retires we plan to spend months at a time on the road in our towed trailer. We bought our first trailer in late 2024. We started with long weekends and week long trips on the east coast. I also take the trailer out for a few days or a week and use it as a base camp for day hiking. This is where the “RV Life” section of this Web Site comes in. That area will start out small but eventually grow into a large part of our blogging activities.
At present, I am planning to attempt to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in 2026. If that goes well I will thru-hike the Colorado Trail in 2027.