Pivot
After 3 weeks and 258 miles on the northern half of the Appalachian Trail, Bogey and I assessed our situation. While my foot was recuperating, I was having trouble keeping the wound clean and we, in general, were having trouble getting our daily mileage where it should be. The week or more of rain certainly wasn't helping our spirits, either. We've certainly hiked in the rain before -- at some point the rain stops and everything that was wet eventually dries out -- but getting my foot infected certainly didn't sound fun. Having put on my last pair of clean & dry socks the morning of the 12th, my feet were again soaked within 15 minutes. The tape holding the sterile gauze in place slipped after a couple of hours and the blisters began.
The morning of (Friday!) the 13th, we walked across NJ 94 to a bakery/deli to get something to eat. It was over coffee that Bogey looked at me and said, "We should --"
"--Call your uncle and get the hell out of here, go back to Baltimore, grab the truck, and spend the rest of the Summer driving all over the place, going down to Texas to visit my folks, then to New Mexico to visit your grandmother, and then out to the West Coast, and then maybe up to Seattle or something, and then drive back across The Badlands, maybe to Minneapolis/St. Paul to see where the Mississippi River starts, and then across the top of the United States back to the East Coast?!"
She laughed.
And then we agreed that that was the new plan. And, thus, we pivoted.
Our plan was very loose. We plan on being in Houston on Sunday the 22. I usually plan on making the 1500 mile drive in two days -- about 12 hours each day -- but I always feel I miss so much plus I'm just drained by the time I pull up in the folks' driveway. So, this time, we decided we'd take several days heading down and stop and smell the roses (and pines, and hardwood forests, lakes, mountains, grasslands, and hamburgers, seafood, barbecue, chicken fried steak, and whatever else strikes our fancy). Beyond Houston, we'll head out to New Mexico to visit Bogey's grandmother near Sandia Peak, and then perhaps wander through Colorado (Silverton, Durango, etc.) on our way to the upper Northwest. After that, cut east through the Badlands, upper plains, the Great Lakes area, and then back to Baltimore.
Finances
Our biggest concern is money. Driving a 8000 lbs gas-guzzling truck across the country and back requires a lot more money than simply walking. Or so I thought. The rule of thumb for calculating expenditures as you hike the Appalachian Trail is two dollars per mile. On the back of a napkin in the bakery/deli, I did some rough estimates using the truck's average highway gas mileage (14 MPG on a good day and not exceeding 70 MPH) at $4.00 per gallon of gas, staying in cheap motels a few nights a week and camping the rest of the time, and sticking as close to a Trail diet (Ramen noodles, oatmeal, tuna packets and tortillas, and so on). Driving beat walking on a per-mile basis. Bogey didn't think it was a fair or accurate comparison, making the point that it wasn't about the miles but the cost per day. We discussed it a bit (I know she thought I was crazy and my calculations and assumptions were off) and what we arrived at was this: We knew how much money we had left of our Trail budget and when we had to be back by; we'd simply sketch out a plan and return when the money droppedd to a certain point. In all likelihood, we'd return from our Summer fun earlier than had we stayed hiking on the Trail, but that'd be alright: she could allow a little more time for a job search and preparing for the Fall semester and I could return to work that much sooner.
So, it was decided.
Lodging
To keep costs down, we'd limit our motel stays to twice a week and use free or very inexpensive campsites and other options. After a bit of research, we discovered that one can camp in all national forests and many Bureau of Land Management (BLM), USDA forest service, and Army Corps of Engineer areas for free. In addition, many state and county parks and some municipal parks are very low cost ($4 and up). With that in mind, plus a few helpful websites bookmarked, and the term boondocking added to our vocabulary, we set out.
So, here we are on first night out, in the Cavalier Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and across Highway 17 from the Dismal Swamp.
Transportation
Alas, my truck's air conditioning is not working. I took the truck in to have the Freon recharged but the shop came back and said the compressor was seized. In addition to about a thousand dollars of work, the repairs would need a couple of days to do. Bogey's parents offered us the use of Toyota Sienna, which turned out to be a much better choice than the truck. Not only is the minivan more reliable than my truck with 340,000 miles, it has more space in the passenger area and gets much, much better gas mileage.
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