Pre-journey Journey

Sooo it’s May 31 I’m at the Greyhound station in Boston with my buddy Brandon; wondering why we’re exhausted, starving, aching, yet so excited…well it’s because we’ve been riding bus after bus for the past 33 hours and have just a few more hours to go!

This pre-AT journey has been quite eventful one. Starting in Atlanta with a warm send off from friends and family, our first bus transfer was in Richmond, VA. After walkin half a mile down the road to get some BBQ, we quickly realized that carrying 10 days worth of food in our backpacks adds quite a bit of extra weight. That’s what happens when you’re starting the AT in the 100 Mile Wilderness though. Back at the bus station we happened to meet another potential thruhiker headed to Maine, Suzy! From Richmond, New York City was our next stop!

We got to NYC at 12:30 AM where we met up with a friend of Suzy’s, Tessa, who is hiking with her. Then we set out to explore the concrete jungle! With a 3 hour layover we decided we wanted to go to 2 places; Times Square and “McLaren’s Pub”, well McGee’s, the bar that McLaren’s from How I Met Your Mother is based off of! Times Square was cool to see, a lot going on! And McGee’s was everything we expected it to be! Felt like we were in the booth next to Ted, Marshall, and Barney! It was quite legen wait for it…dary!!!

Back at the bus station in NYC, which was quite sketch, we all ended up falling asleep on the ground. Probably not the safest idea but we were exhausted. After a short bus ride to Boston, on a bus that smelled remarkably like cat urine, were in Boston.

Finally about to board our final bus to Bangor where we’ll meet up with Phil from 100milewilderness.org who will take us to Monson tonight and Baxter State Park first thing in the morning! Brandon and I both cannot wait to sleep in not a bus seat!

In just a few “short” hours we’ll be done with this pre-journey journey and honestly, I CAN’T WAIT!