thanks guys.

I do understand about buying the pack last. I've got i good idea of what i wanna take and accumulating that before. for this trip, i can borrow from my buddy who's done half of the AT. He said that 2000 cubes is the biggest you'll need. I'm thinking 3000 to pack my sleeping bag inside.

I do have a sleeping bag that works well and i'm looking to upgrade to a more compact one. I think personally that the pack should be first, cause i've got access to everything else but, i'll listen and look around and get the rest before i get a pack. And our boyscout leader was a vietnam vet and disagreed with the city stuff. everything we used was basically camp in front of it, shovel,stove, etc.
the biggest city item we ever had was the chuckwagon box we built and it had goodies in it. I did lie a little bit, i have backpacked a little bit maybe a mile and half one way carrying what we needed in school packs, and later on my external frame pack. But its old, and deffinately not comfortable.

and also, i live on 40 acres so i've got somewhere to test it out which we do a good bit. Once i get my pack, and stove (on order) i'll spend a weekend night out and test out how packable i can be.