Getting Our Feet Wet

I'm not sure who this is for. It's basically an on-line scrap book and journal, so I guess it's just for us - me and Nick. Maybe we'll share with others eventually. But part of my need to get outside and explore the world - as, I would think, with many if not most people who pursue such things - has to do with the need to break free of the trappings, echo chambers, and dopamine levers of social media - which keeps me not only indoors, but locked inside my head - investigating, finding, and filing away information - and growing increasingly alienated and depressed, without ever experiencing much of anything. So this is a travel journal. Or an adventure journal. And it's a two-person journal. Nick will be contributing as well. We're both trying to turn a corner and find new meaning in life and new love for one another, through experiencing everything the outdoors has to offer. So far, we've made a decent start. About a month ago was the 2018 the winter Olympics. I love the Olympics, and watch it religiously when it comes around. It usually inspires me to get off my ass for awhile. This time was no different. One morning, shortly after the Olympics ended, I decided it was finally nice enough to test out our camping equipment I'd bought the year before. I intended to get outside last year, but due to my aging dog, my depression, and a few obstacles, I never did. I mentioned to Nick on the way out the door that I wanted to go camping. I thought I'd just do something easy and close, and I didn't think he'd be interested in joining for some reason. But he was. He told me he needed supplies. I was reluctant to spend much money on stuff, as we already had a lot of things that I thought would work well. But when I saw how serious Nick was, I realized I might finally have someone to go on adventures with. This was one of the reasons I hadn't done much before - the gay guys I knew were mostly uninterested in getting dirty and being outdoors - and my straight friends started having kids years ago. Not to mention I didn't have the time or money to go on many adventures during law school and my 8 years as a Palm Beach public defender. So we began making plans, and buying supplies. We got my an sleeping bag. We got him a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag. We got a firestarter. We got camp pillows. We got a little gas stove and gas canister. We got water purification tablets and lightweight camping cookware. After some research, we returned Nick's sleeping bag and ordered another, lighter, warmer mummy bag, with high fillpower down feathers. We got camping food, light stakes, rainwear, more camping cookware. We need a lighter tent, and I need a lighter, less bulky sleeping bag, and new hiking shoes, if I'm ever going to do anything substantial, but these things will have to wait. We have enough to train with this spring, and I've spent enough! From the beginning, the plan has been to go up to the mountains and section hike the Appalachian Trail. Before long, Nick decided he wanted to thru hike the AT. I won't be able to commit the time to such an expedition in the foreseeable future, but I'm fully supportive. Unfortunately, we're a little too late to the show for him to take off this year, so we've decided to use our time as training for his 2019 AT thru hike. Hence, the section hiking. As I write this, we have planned to hike some variation of Amicalola Falls to Springer Mountain 4 weekends in a row, only to be rained out each time. Each weekend until this one, we went elsewhere. Four weeks ago, we camped at Lake Tobesofkee, a pretty lake just outside of Macon. This was simple car camping, and an opportunity to test out our new equipment. My main concern going into this is whether I'll be able to sleep enough that I can exert myself day in and day out. At home, I'm a terrible insomniac. But I think this has more to do with my inside the building, inside my head job as a legal writer and facebook addict, than with anything else. So maybe learning to sleep on the ground will help, if it keeps my away from the blue lights. The blue meanies that the ghost of Steve Jobs sends to keep my third eye pried open. Anyways, I slept okay - better than many nights I have in my bed. We walked around the lake, cooked on our stove, had some whiskey, smoked a little, and I was asleep before ten. We woke up and, before going home, went to Arrowhead Park, on the other side of Lake Tobesofkee, where we practiced backpacking, wearing our heavy packs on a 7 miles mountain biking trail. We went about 3.5 miles before we ran out of time. If we didn't leave soon, our camping permits (which covered our admission to the mountain biking trail) expired at 11AM. It was a good day - and just whetted our appetites for adventure. We both came home planning the things we would do next. We again settled on Amicalola. The weather again refused to cooperate. So we lucked out, and scored a camping permit at a place I'd wanted to visit for a few years, ever since I found out about it: Cumberland Island.