So last night I got into my bag around 8:30 but didn’t fall asleep until almost 2:30 in the morning and woke at 5. I think the last time I fell asleep before midnight was on the AT. 
The good news, I finally took my first shit outdoors. Never done it before. Yes, I went the entire AT only using the privies. 
The hardest thing about this trail so far is the heat/sun, it’s pretty intense. First two days were long so I cut today short, stopped hiking around 5:45. 
Today is the first day I’m using the ZPacks Hexamid tent. It just started to rain as I type this and winds are pretty strong. I don’t think I have this tent set up correctly, really hope it doesn’t crash on me. The sides of the tent keep smacking me in the head when the wind gusts which is annoying. I hope this doesn’t last all night. I would like to sleep more than a few hours for once. 
So about thirty minutes just passed and the rain stopped. Stepped out real quick to readjust the tent, it’s better than before now, but still not perfect. Also took the time to use the water on the side of my tent and rinse off my hand and legs. Rain is starting up again. 

Holy shit. Long day. Ass is chaffing bad. Did not intend to go this far. Pushed for a camp spot but when I got there it was very windy. Couldn’t set up my tent. It was getting dark. Found a small sloped spot free of wind in the middle of bushes. Looks like I’m cowboy camping again. Hope the bugs and rain don’t get me. This was going to be longer but it’s late. 

Went from ME>NC>AR>CA, kind of a long day of travel. Got picked up by trail angels named Scout/Frodo. They house and shuttle hikers to the trail every year. Their house was really nice. Very organized. There was about 20 other hikers there. I organized all my gear and tried to get some sleep. This was all yesterday. 
Woke up at 4:45 after a few hours of sleep. Slept about six hours the past two nights. We all left Scout/Frodos house at 6 and got to the trailhead at 7ish. It was cloudy and windy, about 30 degrees cooler than I thought. We all took pictures and got our packs on.
I was the third one out at around 7:25. Man, this trail is insanely easy to hike compared to the AT. I hiked with a few other people and we were all going over 3MPH, fully loaded with water and food, no trail legs. Took a few breaks here and there and made it to the campground (mile 20) at 3PM. I wasn’t even planning on hitting 20 the first day with a late start. There was a toilet at the campground so I tried taking a shit. We all took our shoes off and ate. Seems like we packed too much food because all of us were trying to give some away. We hiked out at 4:40, 6 miles to the next campground
We arrive at the campground, 26 miles from the start. You have to pay 13 bucks so we decide to eat dinner, do some chores and try to find a camp spot. We left at around 7ish and we didn’t see shit. Kind of got worried since it was getting dark. We ended up finding a big flat spot for the four of us. I never cowboy camped on the AT, only ever done it in the Marines, but we’re all doing it tonight. Hope it doesn’t rain. 
This puts us at 27.6 miles. Did not expect to almost hit 30 on day one, but like I said, this trail is easy to hike.

My first post, testing out this blogging thing before I leave. Today was my final full day at home. I packed up everything and threw it in a luggage bag I bought at Goodwill for three bucks. I didn’t want to check my bag and risk it getting damaged or losing any gear. 

I shipped out a couple resupply boxes, shaved my head and watched the Heat/Raptors game. Kind of sucks to have to miss the NBA playoffs again, but oh well. I hope the Cavs win it. 

I have to wake up in six hours so I should probably stop watching TV. But I know I won’t be able to fall asleep until well after midnight. 

I have never blogged before so I’ll do my best to keep this updated. I probably won’t write too much since I’ll most likely be tired from hiking all day and I know most people don’t like to read a giant wall of text.