March 15

Beware the Ides of March!

I finished my last day of work.  Turned in all my keys and the cell phone.  That was weird.  Not really sure how to feel about that yet, but it has been nice to not hear that ringer going off the past two days!  It is hard walking away after almost 10 years, and I'm going to miss C'ville.  Bye everyone!  See you in a couple months....

Now I'm at my parents house in Page County.  This is rural Virginia.  We have goats and cows for neighbors.  Sure smells different up here, hehe.  The funny thing is though, that this is just the kind of community I will be reconnecting with on the Trail.  There's so many small rural towns that I will get to see along the way, and I'm looking forward to the experience of seeing small town USA and a slice of Americana that could soon be lost.

Over the next few days I plan to run some errands to pick up some last minute items before I take off for my hike.  I think I want to stop by a pharmacy and pick up a couple doses of this drug I found out about online that is used to combat Lyme disease.  I figure if I'm in the middle of nowhere and notice a tick that is embedded in my skin, I can pop a couple pills until I can get to a doctor to have the bite site examined.  In other medical related news, I just got another bill from UVa for my visit to the hospital this winter.  Not a fan on UVa hospital system.  The invoice was dated 3/2/12, for a procedure on 1/5/12.  Are you kidding me?  Then the due date is 3/18.  So let me get this straight, you take 2 months to bill me, but expect payment in a couple weeks.....great.  Since I left my job, I had to pick up my own insurance policy, and that has been a bit of good news.  I got a call from the agent, and I ended up qualifying for the policy in a better health bracket, so my premiums will be about $40 less a month than I expected.  Awesome.  That equates to an extra hostel stay, trip to an all you can eat buffet, load of laundry, and pint or two at a pub each month.

I am going to start putting together some mail drops to send myself.  There's a few hostels and outfitters along the way through Georgia, NC, and Tenn that I want to stop by, so I'm going to send myself some food and supplies to avoid paying high prices for those items for the first few weeks on the trail.  I also need to start packing, unpacking, and repacking my gear to get used to where everything should fit in my pack.  Other than that, I plan on watching some NCAA tourney games.  Hope UVa can pull off a couple wins!  I have them upsetting Florida first, then I have them shocking Mizzou in the next round.  Hoping that their lock down style of D can slow down the talent Mizzou has, but it's a long shot.  The only thing riding on my bracket is bragging rights, so no biggie.

Some trees are starting to bud down here in the valley.  Flowers are starting to bloom too.  It's supposed to be 80* today.  This warm weather is throwing everything off.  I feel like I'm missing the start of Spring and I need to get on the trail.  I think winter will have one more surprise to throw at me though.  Probably end up snowing 3 feet on me somewhere in the Smokeys in April.