Planning is Getting Real!

A new booth space and setup at the Walk in the Woods Art Show this year.

This week I was getting ready for my first summer art show. A week ago I ordered the Ice Age Trail Atlas, Friday I received it in the mail. I guess that means I can really start planning my trip. I'm living in two times right now: what I need to do this week, and what I need in order to be ready for my practice hike and my Ice Age Trail hike. I'm getting a little frustrated that my current life is interfering with my future life. I don't know how to get things done without focusing solely on that thing so to have my attention divided this way, I'm not sure I'm accomplishing anything in either time.

The Atlas, they send you the covers and the three hole punched pages,
I put it in the binder to keep everything together. For now.

I doubt myself. Of course I do, who's going to look at 1200 miles and think "easy peasy?" Unless of course they've done it before. I doubt my feet, my knees, and my back. I don't have decent shoes yet, so when I walked 8 miles one day last week with my pack on, something in my foot got tweaked. I've been babying it this week, but who knows how long it will take to heal? My knees ache each time I walk with my pack on, which could also be a result of poor shoes, but I am looking into trekking poles as well. I strained my back last year and every now and then it acts up when I move wrong.

The whole state map. The pages are three hole punched so while you are walking,
you don't have to take the whole book with you, only the pages you need right then.

So how do I figure I can walk 1200 miles? I haven't the foggiest, but when it comes to it I'm going to give it my best shot. The thing is I don't usually tell the whole world what my plans are, especially when it scares me just a little. I have this thing about failure: if I fail and no one knows I was trying, everything is still ok; if I fail and everyone knew I was trying, then I will have to explain again and again why I couldn't do it and be forced to relive that failure again and again. I had a nightmare last week after it felt like everyone I knew suddenly had heard from me or my parents that I was going to try the Ice Age Trail and it exposed my fears to me. I still can see the imagery in my mind's eye and I may have to paint it just to get it out of my head.

I did try ordering some hiking boots this week. I have big feet and they say you should order boots one size larger which means I should order size 12's. I got the boots in the mail Thursday, I sent them back Friday, I couldn't even imagine waking a half mile in those boots, pretty sure I would have had blisters before I made it a full mile!

The first map showing the western terminus. There is a ford, (meaning I will have to wade
through a stream of some sort) right at the beginning. Barefoot in the water in April? Ok...

Oh well. I guess I'll need to try some more boots on and if I find some I like I'm going to get two pairs so I can break them both in just in case I walk one pair to pieces when I'm on the trail. I don't want to get a brand new pair when I'm walking 10-20 miles a day, recipe for instant blisters.

The first map covers the little box labeled 1, there are 105 maps to cover the whole trail.

There is still so much that I need to do in order to be prepared for a hike of this type. And since I'm planning on a practice hike this fall I really need to be prepared by then. I'm researching, reading, studying, and wondering what I need, how I'm going to figure the logistics of resupplying and camping, the distance I can go each day, what do I plan to do in case of a hundred different scenarios, and can I manage everything with a lightweight (20 lb or so) pack? I don't know. I'm going to try. And until then I still have pottery that needs to be made!