Thanks Charles. I'm hoping to hike 3-4 times a week, more initially. In recent years, I've been doing somewhere between 70-90 miles a week on my hiking vacations. I usually drop about 5-7 pounds and feel terrific. There is no doubt this will be the best thing I could do health wise (both mental and physical), provided I can stay out of the way of the bears, timber rattlers, and yellow jackets.
When I'm hiking, I do miss my music in the evenings, along with my wife and dog, of course. When I return to Indiana, I miss the hiking and beautiful scenery in the Smokies terribly. I had thought to buy a little condo down there, but my wife shocked me suggesting we just move lock stock and barrel. After carefully considering the move for 0.5 nanoseconds, I said, well, OK, if you insist.
I concluded that it would be easier to move the family to the Smokys than to move the Smoky Mountains to Indiana, but there are days when that judgement seams questionable. So much so, that my wife and I occasionally questioned the move. However, we finally found THE house, and almost have our home in Indiana on the market, so perhaps we are almost done. I hope we will be fully out of Indiana before the end of the year. For my wife, she gets her dream house and a retirement at the tender young age of 52. I get a 24 year old dream fulfilled.
For all of you mid to late career guys that tire of the daily grind, chin up! Dreams do come true.
