We are still alive and still in Oklahoma. “Project X” ended up well for the week with Andy not getting kicked out of any casinos, refining his strategies and ending up in the black for the week.

I went to Talihina for the weekend with a bunch of couchsurfers to “see the fall colors” and despite my reservations (since I’m not big on looking at leaves from behind a car window) I had great amounts of fun, made a few new friends and got to know my old ones better.

For bigger news last, we made an executive decision that might entail us skipping baseball season for next year. (insert dramatic music here)

We’ve been talking about hiking The Pacific Crest Trail for the past year or so, and I think we’re going to try and do it this coming April. I’m not saying for sure, but the more people we tell and the more we talk about it, the more concrete it gets.

The PCT is a tough hike that takes four and a half months from Mexico to Canada through California. The idea started becoming more of a real goal when we went for what we thought was going to be a four or five mile hike in Lake Thunderbird State Park. The wooden trail maps hadn’t been updated since the new trails were completed and we ended up hiking 17 miles by accident. On that hike we started talking, both somewhat dreading, for our own reasons going back to Vegas for baseball season. As we walked, we both realized, that we really don’t have to. We have low overhead, no kids and barring any sort of injury to Andy’s golden brain, have the ability to make money when we get back.

Although, things are far from set in stone, I thought if I put it out there, it would cement the plan that much more.

I haven’t been updating much because we’ve been hiking all over the place. Granted, flat Oklahoma isn’t the best place to train, but it’s a start. Tomorrow, we’re loading up our packs and hiking fifteen miles to Lake Thunderbird, camping for the night and then hiking the trails on Wednesday.

Is it bad that I think that more than a little of my motivation to do this has spawned from watching bad 80′s gymnastics movies? I was always jealous of the gymnasts (and boxers) that would tape up their hands and feet. I wanted to do something so tough that it would involve white tape and a bag of ice.

While I was taping my toes this morning before we went on a ten mile trek to buy Andy new trail running shoes, I distinctly heard Eye of the Tiger playing just for me in my head.

Here’s some links to blogs if your interested enough to read more about what hiking the PCT is like or, more about ultra light hiking:

Andrew Skurka
Ryan Jordan
Henry Shires
Jason “Space Cowboy” Bobier (they didn’t make it the whole way because his wife had a bone spur)