Hiking The Appalachian Trail With Your Dachshund

What a great way to spend some quality time with your Dachshund!  Meet Crystal Stroud, 26, and her smooth 3-year-old girl 'Polly,' who hail from Mississippi.  They are seen here getting some supplies in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, as they hike the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine this summer. 
Tuesday marked the 75th anniversary of the completion of the trail, which runs 2,180 miles across 14 states from Springer Mountain Georgia to Katahdin, Maine.  Excerpt from the Associated Press:

Outside Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harpers Ferry, Mississippi native Crystal Stroud, 26, opened boxes of supplies shipped by friends and family – nail clippers and dog food for her trail buddy, a 3-year-old Dachshund named Polly, and wipes, trail mix and a loaf of homemade lemon poppyseed bread for herself. Many rural post offices dot the landscape along the trail, so hikers often ship things to those post offices to pick up as they progress on their journeys.

Stroud is hiking north after graduating from Mississippi State University and is craving adventure.

“I did not want to get chained down to a job,” she said. “I feel like a bird out of a cage out here. I hike as far as I want to hike. I stop when I want to stop. I get to sleep in if I want to.”

Stroud didn’t realize what she was getting into. She thought she’d camp and hike for a few weeks. At best, she figured, she’d be ready to quit after she saw Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains.

But she kept walking.

“I can’t explain it,” she said. “Life on the trail is amazing. I feel like a kid again, and I don’t ever want to leave.”