I sweeeear this will be the last prologue entry of The SheWee Diaries and that I’ll get into what life has been like on the trail immediately after this one last liiittle post(edit: jk it’s kind of long, read at your own risk). If you want to hear about my drive out west through changing landscapes, training with my pack in New Mexico, and flying out to San Diego to ultimately get to the PCT trailhead in Campo, read on!

Ohio to Wyoming

Why oh why did I think this drive would be fun. “I’ll stop and see the world’s largest ball of yarn or Chimney Rock”, I said. “I’ll see old friends along the wayyyy”, I said. And while I did see and do those types of things and had a great time, most of the 23 hour drive out was spent mainlining redbull and nick-naming cars around me in efforts to stay awake. However, there was something illustrative of the very reason for my hike in watching the scenery morph from the carefully planned geometry of the fields in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to the rolling hills and pastures of Iowa, to the red dirt and sharp bluffs of Nebraska before finally arriving in The True West. Wyoming, land of open spaces, big skies, and amazing views all intensified by the feeling of complete solitude. Not to mention I got to attend my Moose’s 70th birthday party and get used to the altitude while I hung out there for a few days!

Driving through Ye Olde P-town (Peoria,IL), my old haunting grounds for about a year after I moved back to the states.

Things getting a little more scenic in Iowa.

Visiting this fine lady and mother in Omaha, NE. Awesome way to break up the grueling drive!

Montañas or bust!

The North Platte river in Casper, WY. At 5000 feet as the lowest point in the town it was good light training to walk down here with my pack and break in my trail runners. Coincidentally, this very path is part of the Oregon trail where the Donner party passed by ~170 years ago before their ill-fated attempt to cross the Sierras in what is now called Donner Pass, which I’ll be hiking through in about 2 months time! I’ll get there before the snow of course and pass on ze human flesh tartare.

Celebrating 70 years of Moose.

We filled the birthday girl’s piñata with metamucil cookies and flower seeds. And they say you kids never give back as much as you gave to them psssh.

The “Evolution of the Ewing children” pics are always whhipped out at these affairs. Woof.

Wyoming to New Mexico

After spending a few days with family I drove down to my hometown of Albuquerque, NM to see old friends, eat amazing food, and go on a triple-crowner-supervised training run with my pack up and down the Sandia Mountains. It was without a doubt a more scenic drive and I felt very ready to start the trail after my few days in Burque. Thanks Mizz Beeman, AA, and Thigh Gap!

Amazeballz view from Alicyn’s apartment. Miss the hell out of that mountain-scape.

Mmmmm Frontier Burrito. First food-porn of the blog heyo

22 mile training hike up and down La Luz. I’d never camped on top of the Sandias before! Pardon the picture-dump, I just miss this place a lot.

New Mexico to San Diego

I landed up getting a direct flight from Abq to San Diego, with plans to stay one night there at a trail angel’s house who give hikers a free ride to the trailhead about 50 miles away(trail angels are really generous people who help thru-hikers along in their journeys with no expectation of recompense. They really are amazing!). Howeverrrrr I’m a big spaz and forgot to email them with my plans, so we experienced a misconnection and I decided to stay in an AirBnb for the night and get a Lyft to the trailhead. Wayyy more expensive, but it was nice to have a night alone to gather my thoughts/(act crazy and emotional and freak out privately) before the big start date on April 30th. The room was really comfortable, I was able to bus around downtown San Diego for the sights and amazing pizza in Little Italy, and my Lyft driver the next morning was a really nice girl named Marissa who was really excited for me and even managed to make me feel great and excited for myself on the way there.

San Dia-hago, which I believe means Whale’s Vagina in ancient German.

Hippy arts and music festival to acclimate me to the vibes of California.

Filippi’s Pizza Grotto, the best pizza in the world. I landed up putting more than half of this in my pack for a first day’s food supply!

My AirBnb, oh how I miss those clean sheets now.

What in Sam hell am I doing!? With 5L of water for the first 20 mile dry stretch my pack was really weighted down.

Border wall between Mexico and the USA. Here goes nothing.