The big news of the day is "meeting" two hikers. I knew I'd met one of them in person before. Turns out I'd met them both, and that's a fantastic story.
There is a hiker who is approximately my age with the similar name of Judy Young. We are not related. She's done a lot of trails, and she asked if we might manage to meet while I was on my way home. She lives near Lexington and my route went right by there. So we met for lunch. Here are Judy Young and Joan Young.
Well! It turns out that one of the reasons she wanted to meet with me was because we HAD met before. In 2005 I went to the ALDHA (Appalachian Long-Distance Association) Gathering in 2005 right after I had published my first trail book-North Country Cache. I was so proud of that book! I thought that the ALDHA vendor venue would be a perfect place to sell a book of trail stories. Ha! Most of the people there just turned up their noses at anything North Country. "It's not a real trail," sort of reaction. I sold one- count it, one- book over the entire weekend. Guess who I sold it to- Judy! So I got to thank her. We talked a lot about various trails, and she wanted to know more about the NCT.
Then for dinner I was treated by Pat Long, volunteer with the Buckeye Trail Association. He is going to spot me for the next two days to hike all of the American Discovery Trail in Kentucky, Don't get too excited... it's not very many miles, but it's fun to say you've completed one whole state. And there is a patch. I'll connect it to the Buckeye Trail in Cincinnati.
So we talked for 3 hours about trail stuff. What fun! And this is perfect, because these will be short hikes. It's a nice transition back to home life.
But I do have to get up early tomorrow to be spotted, so I'll say goodnight for now.
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