What did you do after you finished your thru?

[moxie]

What kept you on the trail was a good thread, now I'd like to ask, what did you do in the 1-3 months after you completed your thru hike?
Personally, my wife and sons met me at Katahdin with a six pack of Moxie and a lobster, we went out to dinner and then came home. I put on alot of slide shows and didn't even look for work for months. I got a nice award from the Govonor of Maine as an smoker who had quit, (2 packs a day for 37 years) who then hiked the trail with asthma and emphesima. I didn't look for a job for months and finally took a "no brain" job after doing very demanding work all my life. The trail turned me into a much calmer person willing to accept the up's and down's of life. After a six month adventure I needed time to decide what to do with the rest of my life and it was wonderful life altering experience.

[Sly]

I started planning for my next hike.

[PJ 2005]

I love moxie, but there's no way to get it in tennessee...

I was in a daze, sort of... like a bunch of zeros back-to-back. In reality, I went back to uni for my final semester and got a girlfriend.

[Footslogger]

I sat quietly on and off and reflected on what I experienced over the past 6 months. Looked through my pictures and got in touch with as many other '03 hikers as I could.

After about 3 months I realized that I needed to re-approach the world of work. That's when the trail really started to pay dividends. If nothing else I had realized what I did NOT want to do for a living and gave myself permission to look outside the box for a job.

Going on 4 years and I'm still there and for the most part enjoying the work.

'Slogger

[Lone Wolf]

[QUOTE=moxie;327781 what did you do in the 1-3 months after you completed your thru hike?
[/QUOTE]

went back to work as a sanitation engineer then hit the trail again 6 months later

[Krewzer]

....made a huge mistake. Went back to work.

[MacGyver2005]

Went back to work three weeks later.

Regards,
-MacGyver
GA-->ME

[Tipper]

My wife met me in Millinocket and we hiked the last 5.2 miles together (and back, of course), ate a lousy dinner, but then had a great drive through the Whites where I could 'impress' her with the peaks I traversed. We stopped in Vermont to visit friends (they live 1/4 mile off the Trail), then took our time returning to Baltimore. I organized photos then held an open-house for neighbors who supported my hike. I had an interview in the local paper, then shaved my 1-year old beard. I tried to maintain my fitness by running, but my knees were so shot that even today I can no longer run and I get stiff sitting too long, or after a short hike. Much of the weight I lost came back, too. The accolades are few and far between now, but I still have intense and fond memories of my thru (GA>ME '06) and am planning to finish organizing the pics and e-letters I wrote into something like a memory book. As for work, I finished my reports for the work I did while hiking, did some training for some ATC folks, then reported to the Grand Jury for a 4-month stint hearing probable cause cases about narcotics, handguns, arson, murder, assault, sexual and child abuse, and fraud. Obviously, I'm planning a backpacking trip within a week or two of when I get dismissed from the jury. I'll be presenting at this summer's ATC biennial in Ramapo, NJ. Perhaps we'll meet there over a brew or two and reminisce about our trip and our future. Peace.