{"id":37,"date":"2009-02-04T22:59:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-05T02:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/?p=37"},"modified":"2010-05-17T07:36:16","modified_gmt":"2010-05-17T11:36:16","slug":"challenges-and-temptations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/04\/challenges-and-temptations\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges and Temptations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tom asked: &#8220;What do you think the biggest challenges will be? What<br \/>will tempt you the most to leave before you&#8217;re done?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course I can offer only suppositions until I am actually out there<br \/>and doing it, but there are two things that I think will present my<br \/>biggest temptations to quit. The first will simply be missing Jodi so<br \/>much that it overrides any ability to focus on and enjoy my life on<br \/>the trail. The other situation would be spending a week hiking in<br \/>constant rain, or a prolonged hot spell hiking through the<br \/>mid-Atlantic states, or maybe a hell of mosquitoes and gnats in<br \/>southern New England, and being so physically miserable that I lose<br \/>focus on the bigger picture and can see only the current, but<br \/>temporary, misery.<\/p>\n<p>Bicycle touring is somewhat analogous. It is a deeply satisfying and rewarding way to travel, but it isn&#8217;t always &#8220;fun.&#8221; Sometimes getting from here to there is simply a job of work that needs to get done.<\/p>\n<p>I am told that thru-hiking is more a mental and emotional challenge<br \/>than a physical one. I guess I&#8217;ll just have to wait and see if I am up<br \/>to that challenge or not.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<br \/>~~~~~<br \/>Allen F. Freeman<br \/><a href=\"mailto:allen@allenf.com\">allen@allenf.com<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allenf.com\/\">www.allenf.com<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/allenf.blogspot.com\/\">allenf.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom asked: &#8220;What do you think the biggest challenges will be? Whatwill tempt you the most to leave before you&#8217;re done?&#8221; Of course I can offer only suppositions until I am actually out thereand doing it, but there are two things that I think will present mybiggest temptations to quit. The first will simply be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at_thru_hike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":511,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}