I always dreamed of a thru hike with my partner/spouse. We love spending time together and we both love hiking and backpacking. The Long Trail e2e we did a few years ago confirmed all of that for us.

But I think now we're planning to do the AT in big sections, five or six weeks at a time. There are so many things we like to do here at home, so many people with whom we want to spend time before they are gone. We host a weekly Old Time jam, and go to festivals, and have a little band that mostly plays on the porch. I'd miss too much if I were gone for 7 months or more. (We're not fast hikers....)

So we'll do the AT over a three or four year period after my partner retires, when I can partially retire and get summers off (I hope.) Then we want to do a Camino pilgrimage, and hike some of the trails in Ireland and England. Maybe bring a fiddle and a banjo with us I still want to hike out West, though my partner isn't as excited about that (grizzly bears! mountain lions!), and I want to do some month-long driving trips in our camper. Up to Cape Breton, back to Glacier and the PNW, back to Utah and the Southwest. A month of kayaking and camping along the Southeastern coast. So much to do!

So I guess my real dream is to stay healthy enough to do some of this stuff.