Ep. 02: Megan Bryant - Big Adventures Empowered by Little Inspirations

Dr. Joy James speaks with App State alumnae Megan Bryant about her her trek solo hiking the Appalachian Trail for 6 weeks covering 600 miles. Along the way she found a community of like minded people from many different walks of life, suffered through shin splints, discovered she was much stronger than she thought and even happened to meet her future fiance! 

 

Transcript:

00;00;19;00 - 00;00;51;06 Melissa Weddell Welcome to the Outdoorosity Podcast. Get outside. Keep going outside. Where we share Appalachian State stories that entertain, inspire and inform listeners about living an active outdoor lifestyle. Each episode features a story. The goal to get you outside and keep you going outside to improve your overall wellness. The Outdoorosity Podcast is brought to you by the Hope Lab, where our purpose is to investigate the role of outdoor physical activity, exercise and play on healthy environment and human development.

00;00;51;16 - 00;01;16;22 Melissa Weddell The vision of the Hope Lab is to continue developing the perfect foundation for promoting and supporting outdoor physical activity, exercise and play through interdisciplinary research. Feel free to check us out at hopelab.appstate.edu. Hi, my name is Melissa Weddell. I'm a professor in Recreation Management at Appalachian State University and a self-proclaimed outdoor addict. I will be your host for the Outdoorosity Podcast.

00;01;17;04 - 00;01;45;06 Melissa Weddell On today's episode, team member Dr. Joy James, also Professor in Recreation Management Interviews Alumni Megan Bryant. We will be discussing the title of the episode, Big Adventures Empowered by Little Inspirations, where Megan tells us the story of how she moved from the city to attend Appalachian State University, why she made that decision in her journey from learning how to hike and enjoying the outdoors, to planning and participating in a six week backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail.

00;01;46;07 - 00;01;48;14 Melissa Weddell Now, here's the interview with Joy and Megan.

00;01;50;27 - 00;02;10;16 Joy James So this is Joy James, and we have Megan Bryant here with us today to share her story on Outdoorosity. Megan, what I'd like you to do, if possible, if you would introduce yourself, kind of like where you from, how you ended up at Appalachian State. I know you've graduated and then tell us your favorite outdoor activity.

00;02;10;25 - 00;02;36;09 Megan Bryant Yeah. So I'm originally from Atlanta, Georgia, grew up there, but was always drawn up to the mountains, which is one of the reasons that most people end up it up to me, too. I did my first two years of college at the University of Georgia, and I studied environmental economics there. But the mix of the campus culture and also just the focus on economic use of the outdoors was just not where my interest was.

00;02;36;23 - 00;02;55;05 Megan Bryant When I was in high school. I originally applied and got into App, and after two years at UGA, I was like, I'm not happy here. I'm going to try to mix this up a bit. I love App, let's try that out again. So went out for two years and graduated there. I'd say my favorite outdoor activity. I love long distance backpacking, which I know we'll talk a bit about later.

00;02;55;16 - 00;02;58;28 Megan Bryant So that's my all time favorite outdoor activity.

00;02;59;04 - 00;03;04;25 Joy James Cool, so how would you say you first got interested in the outdoors, like your childhood or a friend?

00;03;05;01 - 00;03;22;16 Megan Bryant So my introduction to the outdoors was through Girl Scouts when I was in elementary school, going on little camp outs and stuff. And if you've ever been to The Hike Inn in North Georgia. It's Four miles out and then you stay at this awesome lodge and hike back. We did that and I was like, this is my type of thing.

00;03;22;16 - 00;03;44;15 Megan Bryant Like, I love this. And then as I got into high school, me and my friends love to go hiking. And then on spring break, when most people are going to the beach, we planned a big hiking trip with all of our friends and camping and all of that. And more and more as I was doing it, I was like, I love being outside and then when I got to college, I actually originally wanted to do international affairs and work for like State Department and like big government and stuff.

00;03;44;15 - 00;04;04;24 Megan Bryant And I was very quickly like, Oh, I'm not nearly as passionate about this as I am about being outside. Like I wanted to do National Park stuff. As I got more and more into college, I was like, This is what I want to do. And then I ended up doing a six week solo hike on the Appalachian Trail because I was kind of just lost and wasn't sure what I was going to do.

00;04;04;28 - 00;04;23;05 Megan Bryant After my first year at college. Having all that time out there kind of being like, not only is this oppor