The beginning....we think.

So this is the adventures of the Thunderbolt crew. We hope you will laugh with us, perhaps cry with us and certainly learn with us on our journey toward becoming "serious" hikers.

So, let me start with a brief little history for those of you who may not know us.

Our fearless (or so we hope) leader Dan "Thunderbolt" has a dream of someday hiking the Appalachian Trail from start to finish. Thunderbot's wonderful and willing (at least for now) wife Cindy has embraced this dream as well. But, you have to start somewhere; you should not just buy your gear and jump on the trail for the next 6 months with no experience. Which brings us to the present day.

The first overnight journey to tackle will be the Foothills Trail in South Carolina. A "moderate to very strenuous" hike of 76 miles which we hope to accomplish in and 8day period. We will start our hike at the end of September and obviously end in the beginning of October.

Now enter the rest of the crew. Let's face it hiking is just more fun if you have some friends and family to share the fun with. Alex, the reluctant teenager, will be drug along (although we all think he secretly likes all of this). Then there is me; my name is Tammi and I am not really sure how I fit into all of this aside from liking to take part in adventures and doing something new.

So, here we are the crew of 4 ranging in the ages of 14-39 hoping to train and learn enough to survive our first "serious" hike and at least 3 of us are optimistic enough to believe there will be future hikes.