Venture Out There - An Introduction

 Hi! Venture Out There is not only our page name, it is our way of life!  We love anything outdoors including hiking, backpacking, trail riding in the Jeep, kayaking, traveling, boating...you name it, we're interested!

We are Joseph and Jennifer, high school sweethearts that have been married for twenty-five years (in December 2021). We have two grown children, Lauren & Jordan.  Our Boykin Spaniel, Jake, accompanies us on many of our adventures.  We also have Nemo the cat. Nemo is an Egyptian Mau/Bengal cross and I'm pretty sure the devil is in his lineage somewhere, he's an absolute terror...but we love him anyway.  We live in South Carolina.

Joseph works for an engineering firm.  I am a 911 Dispatcher.  While we'd love to travel and hike full time, right now we have to work trips around our busy work and personal life schedules so it can sometimes be a challenge. If the opportunity ever presents itself to travel full time, I'm sure we'll jump on the opportunity.

While we've always enjoyed the outdoors, we only regularly started hiking and backpacking a few years ago.  I'll save many of the details for another post but beginning to hike was quite a challenge for me. Convinced I could not handle any physical activity due to a few injuries through the years, including chronic ankle and foot pain, I lived a very sedentary lifestyle.

In May 2019, in Virginia on our way to Ohio (at Joseph's request), we walked a short distance on the Appalachian Trail. I fell in love.  I fell in love with the Appalachian Trail almost instantly, the love for hiking and pushing my body beyond perceived limits took a little longer.  In June of 2019, as a Father's Day "gift" for Joseph, I made plans for us to hike to AT Approach Trail from Amicalola Falls State Park to Springer Mountain in GA.  For those not familiar, Springer Mountain is the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, a 2100+ mile continuous hiking trail from Georgia to Maine. The Approach Trail is a little over eight miles long and proved quite a challenge for someone that had never hiked before. My day pack for this trip weighed approximately fifteen pounds, I carried several cans of Vienna Sausages (because everyone knows hikers eat Vienna Sausages on trail right? No. No, they do not...) and a ton of other snacks, drinks and equipment I never needed.  I honestly felt like I would die. I didn't.  By the end of the trail I had sworn off hiking forever and by the time we made it home three hours later, I was already wondering where we would hike next. The next weekend we did ten plus miles in Table Rock State Park in Pickens, SC.  Between the two hikes I lost all my toenails but one (I have since learned how to prevent this) and my body hurt so bad I thought I would never recover. I, again, swore off hiking forever.  It was just a week later when we hiked again, this time a shorter hike near our home but it was official, I was hooked.

It wasn't too much longer before we started backpacking.  My backpack for my first trip probably weighed about 30lbs!! Thankfully, we've learned a lot since then and have had the blessing of upgrading our gear along the way so my pack weight now for the same trip would probably be close to 12lbs.

Since then we have hiked and backpacked a couple of thousand miles in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia.

Our longest day hike to-date has been 26.5 miles. In June of this year we hiked the entire Bartram Trail around Lake Thurmond in Appling, GA (not to be confused with the Bartram Trail in north Georgia, although one is said to be an extension of the other).

In December 2020 we completed the Foothills Trail. The Foothills Trail runs between Table Rock State Park and Oconee State Park in the upstate of South Carolina.  While it was quite a challenge, we loved it and can't wait to do it again. In December of 2021 (only 63 more days!) we'll be spending our anniversary in the Florida Keys "hiking" (I usually refer to it as walking because the trail is paved and includes road walking) the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail.  The trail begins at MM106 in Key Largo and follows the Overseas Highway (US1) to MM0 in Key West.

We have big plans for ourselves and hope to hike the Appalachian Trail within the next few years.

Hiking, and spending more time outdoors, has changed my life. My physical health is improving and my mental health has improved. I am more confident and generally a happier person.  When are not able to hike or be outside, I can tell, physically and mentally. Some hikes are still a physical challenge, but I have found the benefits far outweigh the struggles. Being more active has actually decreased the daily pain that I've dealt with since 2014.

Our blog will primarily consists of details about our adventures, life lessons we learn along the way, and gear reviews.  We hope you'll follow along! One should not feel as if they must walk or hike long distances to see any benefits. I have found that even short walks clear my mind and help me to feel better mentally and physically! It is our hope that by learning more about our lives and adventures that you too will be encouraged to spend more time outdoors and Venture Out There!

Joseph, Jennifer & Jake!