Debriefing

I spent a significant part of today meeting with Chris Loudenslager, the National Park Service Superintendent of the North Country Trail.

In the first place, I like Chris a lot. He's worked for both the US Forest Service and the National Park Service at a lot of different places around the country, including a number of locations that host the North Country Trail which means he has a ton of experience in many situations. I first got to know him when he worked for the Manistee National Forest, and he was the liaison for the Forest to our Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA. I was impressed back then at how much he actually seemed to care about "our" trail.

And I think he still feels this way. It's pretty neat when someone who works for the government actually cares about the entity he or she is overseeing. The person in the Superintendent position has the dubious honor of trying to work within all the federal regulations that apply to a NATIONAL Scenic Trail, and yet manage to actually produce results on the ground that forward the objectives of the trail, without frustrating the NCTA staff and volunteers too much.

I was honored that Chris thought my opinions about the trail, after seeing it twice, were worth hearing. OK, I've been around longer that some of the dirt on the trail, but it still felt good to be valued.

And he came prepared! My brain is still firing off in a thousand random directions. I haven't yet been able to process this hike enough to organize my thoughts. Chris arrived with a page full of questions to ask me. This was perfect! It gave me a framework for the contents of my overflowing brain.

Other than that... I went grocery shopping. A good day, except for the shopping. But now I don't have to do that for another week, so that's good!

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