The big question?

   Welcome to 2015, hope it will be a healthy and happy year for all of us!
   Well the question is: Why thru hike the AT? That's a question I've been asking myself for about 40 yrs. when I first got the desire to hike it. Still not sure what the answer is.
   I was recently going through some possessions that have been acquired through the years (how do you accumulate so much crap?) and came across some guide books and such on the AT. It's all dated 1976 sooo...I guess that's when I first wanted to attempt it. But as so often happens, life got in the way. Or more properly stated, I allowed the dream to slip away,
       Then came marriage
       Then came Ted pushing a baby
                   carriage (ok two).

   Now I find myself at a point in life again  with no responsibilities. Kids are all grown up, Cindyloo (the littlest who in  Who's Ville) makes the flowers bloom every spring, and so I found myself at an impasse in life...or so I became to believe. Then I went to Oregon a few times to visit my son and realized we weren't that far from the PCT (pacific crest trail) which led my thoughts back to the dream of the AT. (We did hike some of the PCT in Sept. when I visited again).
  One of the books I happened to come across is titled:  The Appalachian Trail wilderness on the doorstep by Ann and Myron Sutton copyright 1967, and it had some paragraphs highlighted in it. One of the marked passages reads:  Two college students, James F. Fox Jr., and Paul A. Gerhard, hiked the trail in 1963. "For many years," they wrote in Appalachian Trailway News, "both of us had had a more or less latent desire to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail. We won't go into the reasons for this; anyone who hikes will understand ...."
   I believe that is about the best answer to why that I can give; anyone who hikes will understand....