I’ve heard, I’ve read, and I’ve planned as best I could. I’m like a 15-year-old wandering the woods. I’m 30 and I’m going through my first break up. Symbolically, this book has given me a boost. It’s about stripping yourself to your core and baring your tender heels, your sunburned arms, and your bruised and raw hip bones where the backpack belt rubs you raw as you face every new day. More than the hiking journey, the book is about the journey of developing strength. She had heard, she had read, and she had planned as best she could. Could I, a single female, traverse with my life on my back, pick up some friends along the way, and, ultimately, find myself, my *single* self again? Just like Odyssa? Odyssa had never done a thru hike. In the past weeks–nay, months–, it’s become painstakingly clear that journey with him will never happen. a backpacking trip on the AT for a few weeks. On our trip that weekend, we talked about planning for the future…. I took my first hike-in camping weekend in college with my JMU friends.

No, I don’t have secret dreams of being a hobo, but I do have dreams of wandering the wilderness. I crave collecting kindling for a fire, popping open a can of beans, and eating them straight out of the can. I crave the outdoors and getting away from people being able to get at me. At my core, if you don’t know me well enough, I am an adventuress. I picked up Jennifer Pharr Davis‘ “Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail” and didn’t put it down for 24 hours. Sure, I’ve been going to work, cooking grub, and planning for my future, but my mind… well, my mind has been on another journey. And when tragedy strikes, she learns that she can depend on other people to help her in times of need.For the past several weeks, I’ve left on my own journey. The trail is full of unexpected kindness, generosity, and humor. With every step she takes, Jennifer transitions from an over-confident college graduate to a student of the trail, braving situations she never imagined before her thru-hike. She quickly discovers that thru-hiking is harder than she had imagined: coping with blisters and aching shoulders from the thirty-pound pack she carries sleeping on the hard wooden floors of trail shelters hiking through endless torrents of rain and even a blizzard. The next four months are the most physically and emotionally challenging of her life. Though her friends and family think she's crazy, she sets out alone to hike the trail, hoping it will give her time to think about what she wants to do next. She is drawn to the Appalachian Trail, a 2,175-mile footpath that stretches from Georgia to Maine. After graduating from college, Jennifer isn't sure what she wants to do with her life.

Becoming odyssa book