Dedicated to Mara's travel and hiking adventure journals as well as her words of wisdom and suggested resources for hikers and travelers.
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UpdatesFebruary 26, 2014Changes... February 19, 2014Changes...
February 27, 2013Changes...
March 17, 2012Changes... December 3, 2011Changes...
It's been a while since the last stats update. My site has attracted about 70 visitors a day with over 120 page loads since its inception. In total, I've had over 300,000 page loads. July 12, 2010And more changes...
June 28, 2010Additions continue...
October, 14, 2009Major upgrades begin... After traveling for the majority of the last few years, I'm finally in a position to start updating my web site again. I'll list significant changes as they happen here:
November 9, 2006Major upgrade... After discovering SSIs (Server Side Includes), and having Ryan agreeably enable them, my web site finally underwent the major upgrade it has needed for the last few years. Maneuvering around should now be a bit easier with the left side menu. The top menu has once again been replaced with a short description of the entire site and the bottom menu remains as it has been for ages. Page loads should be faster now and it will now be much easier to upgrade the entire site and add new content as necessary. New content includes discussions of:
There is also significantly upgraded content: eArThworm made changes, including adding an Arizona Trail section, to: My site statistics have maintained their approximate use of about 100 page loads and 60 visitors a day. Even with the significant periods of down time over the last few months, I've had well over 60,000 page loads since I started to keep track of statistics. I believe the new left side menu will make for easier navigating. It'll be interesting to see if the number of page loads per day changes over time. August 3, 2006After being down for the entire month of July, my web site is back up now. I've also added a page for my 2006 road trip to New Mexico and Colorado which includes section hikes on both the Appalachian Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. March 28, 2006Just a couple of more updates to report... eArThworm had me add an entire section on the Long Trail to the bibliography. I've added a couple of new mechanisms to make moving around the web site easier. In addition to changing the top of the page to include navigation links, I've added a Google Site Search field to my home page. Let me know if you have any problems with it. March 17, 2006Today is the seven-year anniversary of the start of my Appalachian Trail thruhike. Given that the thruhike was the original motivation for the web site, it seems like a good day to roll out some significant new content. Changes include:
As for a stats update, my site has stabilized and seems to attract about 60 visitors a day with just over 100 page loads each day. In total, for the 15 months since I've been keeping track, I've had nearly 42,000 page loads. June 17, 2005I've been home for a few weeks now and have finally created the page for my Deep South road trip. It's still rather rough in that I have comments out of order based on the comments in my emails when I was transcribing, but at least the information is there. Also, I can't believe my stats. Since January 13, I've had over 10,000 unique visitors to my web site. That averages 64 per day with 112 page loads per day. March 12, 2005Wow! In the two months since I installed the statcounter code, I've had over 3000 visitors loading nearly 6000 pages. That's more than 50 visitors and 100 page loads a day! And, since I missed loading the code on a few pages to start, those figures may be low. In case, you're wondering, I may, periodically, update the stats here, but will not be gracing my pages with such useless clutter. March 3, 2005Can't help myself... had to add a page of googlewhacks. Fun!... or is that Addictive! ;-) Both! February 25, 2005Added book review. February 24, 2005Added and announced Weathercarrot's PCT Self-Resupply page. February 21, 2005I've been doing some major work in the last couple of days. There are new tips, new trip reports, new book reviews, new gear discussions, and more. Since my last update where I installed the statcounter, I've been getting about 50 visitors a day, on average. That's over 1500 visitors in the last month alone. I've found that for many, seemingly "common" searches, my site ranks surprisingly high in Google rankings. Since for the most part, I eschew the use of keyword META tags, I'm assuming its Google's analysis of actual web content that keeps the site high in the rankings. This web management stuff gets more interesting the more you know. January 9, 2005Revamped the web site yet again. While some of the changes are visible, many of the changes are to allow for easier maintenance down the road. When I realized many web sites link to pages other than my index page, I saw the need to put a header together so that each page will provide a uniform introduction to the entire site. Also, while in the process of moving to statcounter as a stats tool, I needed to modify each page to include counter code. November 26, 2004Added a page of book reviews. November 24, 2004Posted my journal entry from Manistee National Forest on my Yahoo group and web site on the same day. November 20, 2004After having gone missing for over a year, I finally found a copy of my July 2002 trip report on an unmarked disk. I've now uploaded it and edited the Trip Report page accordingly. November 4, 2004Linda "Earthworm" Patton's AT bibliography has now been published on this site with a link directly from my home page. Additionally, I have updated my home page and added my Mid-state and Wapack Trail hike to the Trip Reports page. April 13, 2004I've added my New Mexico report, a page to make joining my mailing list easier, and updated my home page as well. October 10, 2003In the past month since I have gotten home from almost 9 months of wandering, I have managed to upload a quick and dirty version of my road trip journal. While not great, it's better and easier to read than the emails on the Yahoo! site. I've also added a page for Lightweight Backpacking links in conjuntion with a Lightweight Backpacking Workshop I'll be giving this weekend at the ALDHA (Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association) annual Gathering. There's still plenty of work to be done on the site and I hope to continue to make improvements even as I start my job search soon. August 7, 2003In an effort to further populate my site, I whipped up a web page for my AT '99 pictures. It's not well made in that all pictures are on one single page. I hope to break it apart somewhat, provide dates and tags, and provide links from my journal eventually. But, after four years, just getting this rudimentary page up is good news and a good start. August 5, 2003In April, I managed to put a quick and dirty version of my Australia and New Zealand journal up on this site. I've since managed to do the same with my PCT journal. The road trip journal will likely only be put up once I get home and the entire journal has already been mailed to my TravelsAndTrails Yahoo egroup. Nicely editted and linked versions of all of my 2003 journals are planned but may take some time as I'll be job hunting once I get home. December 29, 2002The site has been totally revamped from the yellow/brown motif to white/blue. The focus has shifted to a more comprehensive hiking and traveling site from an AT thruhike focus. There has been some reorganization to separate information of generic interest to hikers from information about my personal forays. I have also simplified the site a great deal and hope to be better able to maintain it upon my return from my 2003 travels. October 25, 2001There's new content in the FAQ/Stats, Gear, and Trip Reports sections. More to come. September 24, 2001I've started adding some gear reviews. Check the Gear page for links to my AT gear list as well as to these reviews. July 17, 2001The actual text of my journal has now been editted and updated. I've added missing information, corrected typos, and taken a stab at some of the unintentional grammatical errors. Perhaps I'll now take a stab at getting some pictures online... Once again, keep checking back for more updates. June, 2001I'm finally revisiting my web site and slowly making changes. I'm updating and correcting my journal, updating the various web pages, fixing typos, removing broken links and bringing other links up to date. I hope to add some of my pictures soon, too. Keep checking back for more updates. Thanks, Mara November 27, 1999Hi everyone. I completed my thruhike on September 29 in 30mph blowing fog. You can now read about the entire journey. All of my journal entries are finally on-line. While there is no September button on the main page yet, you can get to the September entries from any of the other months. I owe the Redhead - big time - for her efforts on this web site. She has turned over the reins and I am slowly getting to know my site and will eventually learn how to update and maintain it. I expect to include pictures from the thruhike and links to other web sites. Many other thruhikers also have on-line journals. Thank you for your patience. Let me know what you think.
Mara
Last updated, February 27, 2013. |
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