Monday, March 30, 2009

4 days down...




I just heard from Mom. She sounds great, more importantly she sounds happier than I have heard her in a long time. She needs me to send long johns and mud (peanut butter, honey, chocolate chip mixture). The first few days have been rough due to rain and her body getting adjusted to the hike and aside from coffee withdrawal she is getting along fine.




I asked if there was any message she wanted me to pass along to everyone she said to sum it up... "I am having the time of my life and am with my kind of people."

Friday, March 27, 2009

Mom - These are notes for you!

Please comment away...

How to reach Mom...

There was recently a question asked of how can any of you reach Mom to send a note or words of encouragement. I have thought about it and have come up with a few options, so here it goes...

1) if you have her yahoo email account you can certainly send her an email to that address. If you do not have the address contact me, Allison, or Meme and we can provide it to you. This site is public so I really don't think I should post it here.

2) I am going to create a post called "Mom these are notes for you". You all are more than welcome to comment there as she will be reading the blog every time she makes it into town (hopefully). Next time should be 3 weeks from now.

3) All of you are more than welcome to send me any hard copy items that you want to get to her and I will send them in the next drop box. Please keep in mind that she is either going to have to carry everything that is sent to her on her back or she will be sending it back to me in the return box.

At this point I feel like option 2 is most feasible and encourage everyone to comment away. I am open to additional suggestions if anybody has one.

Thursday, March 26, 2009


Alright everyone, I just got the official phone call...Mom is on the trail. (YEAH!!!!) If anyone saw the radar there this morning it was not pretty flood warnings and downpours everywhere, but if you know mom there was no chance a little rain was going to stop her. Well, my inside source tells me that it rained buckets all the way to the trail head, but once they got to the State Park, would you believe, the skies cleared, it stopped raining, and the sun came out. It must be a sign. By 10:30am this morning she was on her way. Go Mom!


This morning, one of her life long dreams is coming true. I am so happy for her. We all will worry, but MND2009 will be fine.


I am a map maker by trade, so above is the first of many maps to come so that we can track her progress. Start to finish almost 2200 miles, most of us would dread a car ride that long never mind that distance as a "walk" as she calls it.

Monday, March 23, 2009

She's down south

I just heard from mom everyone. She and Meme made the trip to Tennessee safely. They are planning on spending today and tommorrow together decompressing from the long car trip. She was scoping out all the meal drop locations (i.e. towns) on the way down and I get the feeling is very excited to get started. Mom is going to make her starting goal of Thursday 3/26. Meme is dropping her off and so it begins...

I will update you again once I know more.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

I am on my way!!!!!



Well, I leave tomorrow for Georgia with my aunt who lives in Tennesee and has graciously offered to drive me to Amicola Falls. Can't wait to get started on this journey and be out there.



This is my tattoo - a christmas gift from my daughter. (She did not think that I would actually follow through - now she knows!) I hope the list contines to include the Pacific Crest (PCT), Contintental Divide (CDT), International AT (IAT), Long Trail (LT), and more if time allows. Hopefully this tattoo will grow in size to reach the nether parts. Oh yeah, this in on my shoulder.


Throughhikers are not generally know by their name but their trail name. Just so everyone knows I am Mother Nature's Daughter (MND). This name was given to me about 20 years ago by a very good friend.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Another Reason Why

Everyone has their reasons why - the mountains, spiritual journey, the hike, to find oneself, life long goal and many of those reasons are mine as well but I do have one reason most will not - Multiple Sclerosis.

I have someone very close to me that lives with this disease daily and meets those challenges with a brave heart and positive outlook on life. For this reason, I have contacted the national MS Society and offered that they use my journey to raise funds to fight this disease and find a cure in this lifetime. They were overjoyed at this prospect and have created a web page for me so that others can donate directly to the MS Society. I do not ask you, my friends, to go give but if you choose to it will be appreciated. More importantly, I ask, if you know of any businesses or organziations that would be interested in donating that would be fantastic. Please do pass this link and information on to anyone that you know that might know someone else that might be able to help me raise funds for research. Our network could help find the cure for this disease and that would truly make this hike well worth all the preparation and challenges that I will face in the coming months.

If anyone has any fundraising ideas, please let me know if there is anything I can do. I am willing to do whatever it takes to make a difference and help this cause.

The link is: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Donna.Delisle-Mitchell

Thank you all for listening.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Preparation

How do you prepare for an adventure of this size?



To start with READING - oh yeah, I am an avid reader and this is only a few of the many books I still have. When I gave up the apartment, I did give away about a thousand books and I am not exageratting. These books are some of those that I will never leave behind. All hiking reference materials. There is always another book with some bit of information that I would have missed if I don't get them all. Since moving to Shelly's basement I have added at least another 5 books since attending the AMC annual meeting.






Beyond that, training, training training - first and foremost. Hiking as much as possible and going to the Springfield, Mass YMCA every night in this cold weather weightlifting, cardio, water fitness class, pilates. The Y is awesome. Staff are wonderful and everyone who goes is a joy to work out with. My appreciation of training comes from my experience on the Smith College crew team - go crew! Training will get you to the end of a race or at the trail's end without it this would be one miserable trip from beginning to end.

And planning - have a huge spreadsheet going with the hike mapped out, stuff to see, food lists, mail drop addresses, daily and weekly goals. I am now working on getting the mail drops ready(boxes for Shelly to mail). I love the challenge of trying to figure out the where, when and how much will all this weigh but it can be a bit overwhelming.






Food, oh my gosh, what a lot of work. I plan to have a mail drop every week or so with some food and some that I will buy along the way. I am vegetarian and do not plan on eating ramen every night. I bought a great dehydrator and am cooking and drying most of my food so that I know I will be getting the nutrition I need to stay healthy. If I am healthy I will finish this hike. It is a lot of work to decide now what you are going to want to eat in June!

A concern I have is that today I drink a pot of coffee,. that right a whole pot, in the morning and talk to no one. On the trail, I still won't talk to anyone but one cup will have to suffice. I have a feeling that it is a good thing that I do not have to talk to anyone and anyone out there will likely be glad too.
At this point I am tired of cooking, drying, packaging but no it will be worth the effort in the end.