Saturday, June 23, 2012

John Muir Trail - here we come!

 Well, we aren't coming quite yet, but you just patiently wait.  And have  been waiting for the last 5 years as we have dreamed of doing this with a young family.  JMT - here we come, but first I must pause to blog about you!

Even though we just purchased a foreclosed home and have had tons of projects to do and haven't stopped working on it for about 4 weeks straight (but amazingly, with the help of friends and family, we are moving along swiftly!)  I am not going to blog about that.

Most would want to post the amazing before and after pictures, of which we already have accumulated volumes of but alas, amidst all this dust and accomplishment awaits 6 weeks of food to prep for our epic trip.

Blogging about the rebirth of this foreclosed home would be a logical thing to do.  But I must choose and I am choosing to track the prep for this trip instead.

In two days, we will load up 5 orange Home Depot buckets with 3 weeks of supplies and food to mail to ourselves.  It's not possible to carry the amount of food needed for 46 nights on the trail so for about $350, we will send our food ahead and 2 different mule teams will bring it in to us.

The dehydrator is whirring non stop with fruit bars, hummus, and dinners.  We have learned to make dinners ahead and dehydrate them.  Such a treat to have the high nutrition of a veggie packed stew at 12,000 ft high!

Ultimately, we hope to use this trip and the many trips we have done over the years, to create a book targeted at families to inspire them to get out there and do it.  Intentional togetherness on the trail!  Trail time is like non other as there is nothing to distract from high focused time together.  Life boils down to doing the basics together.  Our 9 year old daughter might skip down to the lake to get the water for dinner while our 11 year old son sets up their tent.  There is a gentle and easy rhythm out there where life is not burdened down with to do lists you don't want to do, but instead is full of easy banter, movement that invigorates, fresh air, clean water, and shared vistas of incredible splendor.




1 comment:

John Bergquist said...

Julie, this is really cool to be able to journey with you guys. Our summer is packed with adventure. We've already had a couple of cool trips including a Crater Rim ride for Kristine and I (I'm posting this from Diamond Lake where we base camped.) at the end of this month Kristine and I head to Beijing and Weatern China. We are seeing if our call to live there for a year as a fam is something solid. I can't wait to read more!