TrailTherapy

Trail Therapy is the term I feel best describes what brought about the changes in my life after walking over 26,000 miles of the United States. I have hiked the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain in North Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. A distance of 2,167.3 miles. In 2001, I walked the American Discovery Trail from Point Reyes National Seashore on the Pacific Ocean in California to Cape Henlopen State Park at the Atlantic Ocean in Delaware, 4,858 miles. March 8, 2003 I left from the northern edge of the Everglades at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Florida and walked to the Pacific Ocean in California. From California I walked to the state of Washington. I then walked from there to Bangor, Maine. From Bangor, Maine I walked back to the exact spot where I started from in Florida. I finished on March 25, 2005 and covered 9,752 miles. I have since hiked 314 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain to Irwin, Tennessee in Spring of 2006. Also in 2006, I walked from Blairsville, Georgia to Cincinnati, Ohio, approximately 393 miles. On March 23, 2007 I left Cincinnati and walked to Surry, Maine and then to Arizona not far from the California line. I returned to Arizona 13 months later and walked from the Mexican/California border to Blaine, Washington at the Canadian border. From the Washington/Canadian border I walked to Key West, Florida, finishing on December 23, 2009. I have now walked through all the lower 48 states, have passed through over 1800 cities, towns, and villages and wore out 33 pairs of shoes covering approximately 26,000 miles. With the exception of my first hike of the Appalachian Trail, I carried over my head a large sign ..."LOVE LIFE." The most difficult thing... but an essential one... is to "LOVE LIFE," to love it even when one suffers, because life is all. Life is God, and to "LOVE LIFE" is to love God. ~ Leo Tolstoy