Called Again Read Online Free PDF

continued, “I just want to be able to see you as much as possible on the trail, and I can’t imagine seeing you hurt or hungry or cold or wet, without being able to help you.”
    I took a deep breath. One thing Brew wanted assurance of before we got engaged was that I loved him more than hiking, and that I would always put him above the trail. In my mind— and my heart—there was no comparison, but he still needed to hear that.
    â€œI want to do what is best for us,” I said. “If that means that I don’t get to hike the A.T. this summer, then I’ll deal with it. But I’ve been dreaming about this trail record for months and working toward it. We are going to have our entire lives to be together and hike together, and I may not have the time or the ability to go after this record in the future. So I’d really like to do it now. Remember, you
are
robbing the cradle.”
    Brew’s solemness eased, and he let out a laugh.
    I liked to tease him that I was his trophy wife. I also liked to remind him of our five-year age difference and of the fact that he’d had his entire twenties to travel and explore. Marriage would certainly be our greatest adventure, but I still wanted to have some smaller exploits along the way.
    â€œWell, what if we did a supported hike?” Brew asked.
    â€œYou mean you’d help me the whole way?”
    I had never done a supported hike before. I had always traveled on my own with everything I needed on my back. In a supported hike, Brew would take our car and meet me at points where the trail crossed a road. I could limit my pack weight and have daily access to food, dry socks, and my husband. I loved the solitude and self-sufficiency of traditional backpacking, but I loved Brew more. It made sense that this would no longer be my hike, but our hike.
    â€œI’m going to be following you and worrying about you anyway, so I might as well help you. What do you say? Want to try a supported record?”
    And from half a world away I said, “I do.”

• 4 •
THE HONEYMOON
    JUNE 2008—AUGUST 2008
    B rew and I were married on June 8, 2008, in a beautiful outdoor ceremony in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Charlottesville, Virginia. We spent almost two weeks honeymooning in Montpe-lier, Montreal, and Maine’s Acadia National Park, and then on June 20, we began our supported thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail at Mount Katahdin, Maine. It was the greatest newlywed adventure that I can imagine, but it was also the most demanding.
    The goal was to cover the Appalachian Trail’s fourteen states and 2,180 miles in less than two months. My job was to wake up with the sun, hike all day, then go to bed when the sun went down. Brew’s role was far more complicated.
    I needed my new husband to locate obscure road crossings, hike in to find me, and always have the correct provisions in his pack or in the car. His role included setting up camp at night, preparing our food, running our errands, and encouraging me with positive feedback and humor whenever we were together.
    At the end of the day Brew would sometimes hike in to meet me with our camping gear. Other times he would leave the last road crossing of the day with me and carry a pack with our supplies so that we could stop and set up camp. Ideally, if I could end the day at a road crossing, he would have our dinner ready, our tent set up, and our sleeping pads and bags unrolled by the time I arrived. It was up to him to make sure that I had everything I needed, all the time.
    And I didn’t realize how stressful the endeavor would be on Brew. He had never spent a night on the Appalachian Trail before the summer of 2008, and I had forgotten how difficult that transition could be. Brew had to grow accustomed to sleeping every night in a tent, waking up to black flies and mosquitoes buzzing in his face, and going several days without taking a shower. He also had to adjust to