With two weeks to go.

Two weeks from today I will be heading to the airport to take part in the third of my charity treks. For those of you who follow my blog closely you will know that this year the trek is across over 70km of the Grand Canyon over five days. I’ve never been to America and the idea of this being my in is very exciting. It is impossible to not be influenced by American culture and some of my favourite writers are from the States and wrote at length about their love for the country.

I first signed up for a trek because of Kerouac. Although he became fairly problematic as a person and became a troubled, bloated and alcoholic version of his former self. The version of Kerouac featured in on the road was not the man he was by the time the book was eventually published and hippies and beatniks hunted him down seeking some kind of sage. It doesn’t matter what the man was like, his words will be here forever and his thoughts on the great stretches of America he traveled across as well as his spirituality and understanding of the universe are what remain. That’s what I love and that’s what I wanted to gain from traveling and writing in the way I do.

I’ve been preparing myself physically and mentally. I’m eating well. I’m running a couple of times a week and heading out on lonely treks through the Essex countryside with a thermos and some sandwiches trying to spend as much time on my feet as possible. I tend to fall off the routine for the rest of the year but in the run up to a trek I get ready to emerge myself in it completely. I can’t wait to fly out. It’s one of the things I enjoy the most.