Tomorrow is my first official backpacking trip, although with four years of history textbooks being smushed onto my back, I'm thinking I won't be sorely lacking in experience. Sore, maybe, seeing as my legs battle with hills like it's Gettysburg all over again. Depending on what shoes I wear, there may or may not be as much blood. While this isn't how I would normally be spending a vacation, and my line of thought is more along Adrian Monk's ("you can't clean nature with nature!"), I'm actually pretty excited for this trip. Maybe it's about time to get out in the world, or I want to say I did something other than watch F.R.I.E.ND.S. marathons during my Summer break. As funny as Chandler's jokes may be, they're not nearly as rewarding as pitching a tent, surviving off of trail mix (read: picking out all the M&Ms and leaving everything else), and hiking ten miles even when Starbucks isn't at the end point.
So perhaps I'm naturally a city girl...never mind that State College is surrounded by nothing but cows, "cricks" and tractors. But I've also stressed the fact that I'm not big on nature because, like every teenager, I wanted to be different from my parents. I had the original idea that I would be my own person, and then learned that all the individualists were, in fact, following a different kind of fad. Not to say that I faked liking nail polish and glitter, but sleeping where I can hear the wind whistling and the birds chirping-- rather than a radio recording of nature--isn't gonna kill me.
And thus, a 30 pound backpack later, I'm ready to take on this whole new experiences thing. Almost...let me just throw my hair straightener in with my hiking boots.
Namaste.
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