So I had every intention of blogging every day this week about the packing process, the anxiety over not having enough, having too much, where the hell am I putting it all, this won’t fit, etc.

However, life.

Seems my body decided to take one last shot at me to see if I am really serious about all this.

It started probably a week ago; but I just haven’t felt 100%.  My right knee, the one I injured in the fall at Walmart, was acting up.  So my sciatic nerve in my lower back decided to act out too.  On top of this, I seemed to have picked up a gastric bug somewhere along the way.  I’ll spare you the details, but the anti-diarrheal meds weren’t cutting it.  In the quiet of my bedroom my stomach sang to me the song of it’s people.

This wasn’t going to fly.  Not with the Fort Davis camping trip this weekend.

So…Monday off to my favorite person in the whole wide world, Dr. Heidi Iratcabal.  I swear this woman has held my poor broken body together for the past 15 years.  If I break it, she fixes it.

Anyway…she did her magic again, including adding some acupuncture tacks.  I took Monday off (no workout) with every intention of working out on Tuesday.

However, Tuesday I was 2 hours into my day when I realized my stomach decided to take me down.  I went home, found some Cipro left over from an India trip.  I slept all day Tuesday, which tells me my body had been trying to tell me something was wrong and I needed pure rest.  So rest I did.

Yesterday I finally started feeling better.  Was able to walk/jog and do some upper body circuit work.  My appetite is still weak, but maybe that’s just me starting to get used to much smaller meals.

Suffice it to say, there were no pictures taken and no blogs written.

However, thanks to my girl, we were able to not only get my backpack packed, but the math on this thing is pretty amazing.  While to the eye it may look slightly lopsided the reality is that mathematically it is even in weight and the center of gravity is exactly where I need it.  She’s pretty amazing!  We weighed the pack and right now it’s coming in just at 35lbs.  Keep in mind that I’m carrying 5 liters of water which is about 11lbs of weight.  Remember where we’re hiking this weekend there is no water on the mountain unless we get rain.

Speaking of rain, I’ve decided that the Fort Davis mountains must be Mother Nature during menopause.  In the past two weeks I’ve seen the rain chances for Fort Davis go from 0% to 50% up to 80% down to 40% back up to 60% and the last time I checked I think we’re at 20%.  It’s a game of what will the percentage be every time I check the weather out there.  So I have to be prepared for “anything”!

I’m both anxious and excited.  I still question whether or not I can really do this and carry this much weight on my back while I hike up an 1,000 ft. elevation gain.  I still have that nagging voice in the back of my head.  However, I’m excited to get back out into nature.

….and yes…I have my driver’s license, yes…I have my insurance card, and my health savings card.  I should be covered should a hospital be in my future.  There is a story behind this.  It involves a camp stove.  While I’ll save that story for another blog, suffice it to say I did spend time making sure I could operate my camp stove last night and this time it did not end up with an emergency room visit.  I consider that alone as a success!

What are you anxious about?  Remember….fear is something we create in our own minds.  We can overcome fear!  It just takes patience, practice and learning to trust!