The great fount of knowledge, the internet, tells me that more and more PCT hikers are starting the trip EVERY DAY. Every day. And while my engineering exam looms frighteneningly large, the extra week and half to starting hiking seems like a long ways away.

Which is good, really. I’m not ready. I finally went to the dentist today, and now I’ve got to cram in a root canal along with all my other chores. I should have gone to the dentist last month. Last year, or even the year before would have been the real adult thing to do. The only thing worse than procrastinating my 3 year overdue dental appointment to 3 weeks before I start hiking would have been to not go at all… So there’s that.

This adult business is still a stretch for me sometimes. I’ve got high school buddies with four kids and counting, and I can’t make myself a dental appointment. I wonder how they do it. Does becoming a parent magically make you more responsible? Maybe it’s some hormone, your body secretes during pregnanacy. Or perhaps there is an evolutionary reason why you can’t remember your first 4 years of life. The universe was just trying to cut your parents a break.

Speaking of parents, J’s were in town this weekend, taking a sunshiney break from what’s turned out to be a very long northeast winter. Seems like it’s been 75 and sunny here forever. (We had a partially cloudy day a week ago, with what *might* have been the faintest sprinkling of rain, and half my office congregated on the balcony to watch it mist.)

J and I took his parents up the Santa Ritas one day and then on a jaunt on Mt Lemmon the next, to squeeze in the whole eco-spectrum of saguaro to oak to ponderosa pine. In an extra stroke of luck, Mt Lemmon was blooming with every wildflower I’ve ever seen.

We did two 7 mile days in a row… I’m really tired… I’ve got a feeling the PCT is gonna be a rough start.