2,184.2 miles: COMPLETE

How do you begin to talk about something, to make sense of something that has so many intricate and moving parts; something that redefined what it means to be alive; something that has become all you've known for a length of time? 

I sit here, awake way past hiker midnight (aka, dark) and feel disinclined to sleep. Perhaps it is my mind, wide awake with the digital stimulation of this computer, the wired electric lights around me, and the lack of nature sounds in the background; or, maybe it was the drive from the wilderness back into Society. Along the highways and byways, in and around the towns where masses of people congregate. Am I still part of this society? If I am, why do I feel out of place?

Perhaps, it is too soon to understand something I only scantily immersed in for the sake of a shower, food, and resupply; and after satisfaction of that we answered the wilderness's beckon back into her immense body. Either way, the reintegration will be interesting, nonetheless. You could say I feel a bit overwhelmed, but I know this will pass. I also know, or I plan rather, to find my way back outside as soon as I recollect my bearings and position in life. 

I've been planning to reintegrate - this unavoidable thing - yet I find it consoling to know I can and will go back out and support other Southbounders still on the trail here in the South. Perhaps this will provide me with a space in which to relate to what has been my existence these last 4 months and 3 days.

This was the morning after, but it captured more what I was feeling about the finish...and less of the peaceful calm that was the afternoon before: October 17th. 

The FREEDOM Gang! Including Peta, whose trail name became Shelia the Australian Smiler (SAS); whom we adopted into our gang shortly after meeting her last week and loving her presence, her foreign spirit in our journey to the finish. 

Thank you once again, to all of you for your help, support, love, thoughts, packages, smiles, or simple words of encouragement. You are the reasons I, and the Freedom Gang, succeeded. So high-fives and smiles to you, too!

Oh, and what is with the Freedom regalia you may ask? Well, there is no better way to remind folks in this great nation, not to mention ourselves, that we live and walk in a free country. And, to celebrate that simply by donning a garment of Freedom, well, .... there AIN'T NOTHIN' FREER!

Stay loving in that Freedom all around us,
Alan



Shower and Laundry count to be tallied soon!