Did You Guess Irene?

The clue obviously took you to the Rochester area, and since you knew I was going east that wouldn't be Minnesota. Who do I know in that location? Several people, actually.

But my long-time Rochester buddy is Irene. We visited and went out to lunch.

She ordered the Cow and Pig Burger. Holy cow! (She took half of it home)

But her living situation has changed, so I needeed a different place to stay. Remember Sarah who hiked a little with me on the big hike, and helped Bill and me last year in the Adirondacks? She also lives there and took me in.

My only walk today was around a large block with Kia the dog. I had hoped for another walk in the afternoon, but there wasn't time.

It was her husband's birthday today! But instead of him being treated, he made us dinner last night- yummy beef stroganoff

So what did Sarah and I talk about? What do you think? She is a total bundle of energy, and I'm in denial that I'm getting older, so maps and hikes it is! If you can't read it, don't worry. If something real comes out of our crazy talk, I'll let you know.

So what's your clue for where I am tonight? Here you go.

See Did You Guess Bill?

Off and Running Toward the Next Adventure

OK, I'm 77. It's just a number right? Well, pretty much, but I can't get my body to do some of the crazy endurance tests I subjected it to when I was younger.

Nevertheless, life is just not right if I'm not planning another adventure. I've had the resources for this idea for a couple of months, but this holiday I got busy about starting a plan. I've already been talking to several of the usual suspects, and a couple of new ones, about possible participation in all or part.

Yes, I'm looking at the Sheltowee Trace Trail in Kentucky and Tennessee. I first discovered this trail in 2019, and purposely hiked a short section of it January 2024 on my trip south. But I want to do the whole thing. And I think I still can if I stay in shape. Other things that are never under my control could derail plans, but that is true of any hike.

Computer spreadsheet itinerary (will change, but you have to start somewhere), FarOut map guide, paper guidebook, first paper map.

Looking at September/October of 2026. 335 miles. Lots of hills. Almost certainly some backpacking and some slackpacking.

I finished Dale Painter's book about his "hiking life" today. Toward the end, he made himself more vulnerable by sharing things that changed, and how he had to adapt. He told honestly about how he experienced an event on a remote trail out west that shook his confidence to the core.

It made me remember some of my feelings leading up to my NCT hike, 2021-2023, and I thought I'd share those here as well. This kind of stuff did not go on the blog entries for the hike. I learned early on that sounding anything but positive and upbeat there led to lots of reactions like "You need to get off the trail," "What do you think you are doing?" "You need to be more careful," etc. I wasn't going to field all those comments, so I quit sharing most of that sort of thing. But it led to giving the impression that I was so tough there were very few "issues."

So here are a couple of events that happened prior to the big hike that made me wonder if I was being a little too crazy to think I could do it.

You may remeber that in 2018 I set out to follow and map the very poorly marked Midland to Mackinac Trail. My plan was to backpack what I thought was a reasonable 12 miles a day. After countless frustrating hours (in that pack) trying to figure out where the heck the trail was supposed to be, and the final blow, a somewhat dangerous following of the blue blazes into the middle of a thigh-deep marsh only to reach a river I could not cross, and then I had to wade back out again to where I last had been on high ground, I switched to day-hiking and usually 10-mile days. (I found out later they changed the trail because of that marsh, but didn't take out the old blazes!!!!) So, I finished the hike, but much slower than planned and not in the way I had desired.

Then in 2020, I planned a 100-mile hike in southern (hilly) Indiana. Because of Covid, even state land was closed for most of the early season. I was finally able to go in June, but jumped directly from local near-freezing temps to days being in the 90s. My body does not like this at all. A couple of days I only made 6 miles. The defining moment was lying flat in the damp gravel beside a nearly dry stream for an hour trying to cool my core enough to hike on even to a campsite. My plan had been to do 15-mile days to see if I thought I could do a sustained 15/day on the NCT- I had decided by then that I was going to try the NCT hike. I ended up only doing 45 miles of the Indiana plan.

In both cases, I had to request change-of-plan help from the people who were spotting me, etc. I don't like doing this. Backpacking requires flexibility almost above all, but I still don't like imposing on folks.

Anyway... I had now just had what I considered to be two complete failures at planning hikes I would be able to complete. I had quite a lot of angst about the NCT plan. About 60% of me didn't even want to tell people I was doing it. The other 40% reminded me that one of my goals was to educate people as to how every piece of the NCT has something special, and if I were going to do that I couldn't keep it secret. Conflicting goals!

Although it's one of the best media interviews with me, ever, I sort of hated that I was interviewed as I went through Yankee Springs. I'd only been on the NCT hike for 13 days and 185 miles- barely a start- I had no idea if I'd be able to sustain that level of hiking for a year.

And yet, I was allowed to complete that entire hike, (just that disappointing break in the winter- but the western UP is unforgiving, and snow came early- I could not stay ahead of it. But I did complete the hike with a slightly altered plan.

I tell Marie that I'm doing denial about ageing. And I pretty much am! But I'm determined to keep hiking at some level for as long as I can walk. However, those of you who call me amazing should realize that I'm no more amazing than you are. I have an Amazing God who lets me take on some big adventures, and lets me complete most of them.

Did some regular work, and worked on this plan in the afternoon. Plus some MORE kitchen cleanup.

See the short hike at the southern terminus of the Sheltowee

Letting You In on the Plan

Three years ago to the day (I did not plan this, and was pleasantly surprised to discover the matching dates), here I was, poised to step into...



Did you remember? ...the Adirondack Park. I knew the NCT maps were inadequate. I mostly found my way, but lost the trail several times, bushwhacked, backtracked, did whatever I had to to get through.

There are currently 174 miles of North Country Trail in the Adirondack Park. Here's a long shot of the area. The medium green is the 6-million acre park.

Ever since this hike, Matt Rowbotham (NCTA GIS Specialist, eg. he does the maps) and I have been trying to cook up a way to get me back there to get good tracks of the trails without my needing to pay for everything on my own.

Last year, that was a no-go. This year, I applied for and got a NCTA Field Grant. It will cover some of the expenses.

Why? Now that Mary Coffin unexpectedly died last fall, it's pretty certain that there is no one who knows the current Adirondack Route as well as I do. I could wait until the organization has enough money to fully pay for this project. But the older I get, the less likely it is that I would be able to be the one to hike all these miles again. Insert ego. I, I, want to be the one who does this.

More why? People are getting increasingly interested in the Adirondack portion of the trail, but the maps are so inaccurate they are possibly dangerous. There are no accurate GPS tracks of hardly anything. We need to fix that.

Who? Bill and I will be doing this together.



What? We will be hiking and mapping 89 miles of off-road trail. Some of this will eventually change, but hey, the NCT changes all the time. Meanwhile, people need accurate maps. Part of what we are going to do will need to be backpacked because there is no road access. We are also going to do structure inventory (bridges, puncheon, etc)

Whether they look like this, or better.



We are being spotted in our endeavor by several people. Sarah (on the left), who hiked with me for three days in 2022.



and Joyce (left) who hosted Marie (right) and me last year. And Marie (of course)



And Diane, shown here completing her Hike 100 last year.



I am highlighting all of them, because they are chosing to travel quite a long distance to help in this endeavor. Yes, it will all count as volunteer time for us and them, but it's a huge project with a lot of moving parts that have to work smoothly because the locations are so remote.

I'll also get to meet the new NCTA Vermont-New York Regional Trail Coordinator, Will Brazill, who is spotting us one day.

So, perhaps you can sense my concerns about being in good enough shape to do this. There will be 5 days of backpacking (split into two sections), and the rest is day hiking. But it will be much more continual and intense hiking than I've done since the big hike and certainly since I've been sick. I'm feeling pretty confident that I won't endanger us by being unable to complete the task, but I'm not getting younger, eh? And I'd prefer not to be in continual pain.

Just as an aside, when I backpacked with David a couple of weeks ago, I asked him who was the oldest person he knows that backpacks. I was NOT fishing for compliments. He got a funny look on his face and said, "You."

As a final reminder of the Daks, and a glorious reminder of what may be ahead (if it's not a gray day when we get there), here is the view from Jones Hill. This will be on our last day!



Only 2.5 weeks to finish preparations, do a few more conditioning hikes, and then... WOW... it will be off to New York!

See Here I Go

Rollin' in the Sunshine - Second 2021 Interior Tour

  What a beautiful ending to Sunny's final day of preparation for this trip.

The cushions were all finished two days ago, and they look as nice as I had hoped. I bought that little rug at the last minute because the floor was so cold, and it helps a lot. Looks good too. The little heater keeps the interior nice and warm.

If you are wondering what that funny wooden thing is on the floor, it's the piece that allows me to make the entire bench space into a bed. Here's what the whole space looks like made into a bed. A regular double-bed fitted sheet is perfect to unite the space into a sleeping area.

Here's a view of the kitchen area again, with everything except the coffee pot, which I'll take out there in the morning.

Monica says she's ready to play hooky and run off with me. (Sorry I caught her blinking.)

Just a look at the table area from a different angle.

The storage area of the kitchen.

And finally, what we hope may be the solution to too many loose shoes on the floor. It's all fastened with Command Strips, so if it doesn't work, it can come down without damage.

Stacy came and helped me all afternoon, and then Monica came after work and helped for several more hours. I just have to go out and stow things in the trailer for travel, but that doesn't take long. With their help, all the extra details got taken care of, and things are put in their places. I spent ALL morning making a few phone calls and doing the last round of errands. This took until 1 pm! But I did get them all done.

And the list? I got the last 3 BIG ITEMS done. OK, so I dropped 5, but nevertheless, I have done 57 major projects (defined as needing more than one day to complete) in the past 75 days. Most of the little ones are done. I sort of quit counting. A few can go on the road with me. Not ideal, but workable. A few are just out of luck.

Teeny is packed, and as you may have seen on Facebook, weighs 28 pounds fully loaded with 5 days of food, and 1 day of water. I'm really happy about that. All my clothes for tomorrow are stacked up. The house is semi-restored... OK, there's just less chaos, but there is only 1 extra table set up in the living room instead of 4. That has to count for something, right? The dining room is hopeless, but it's been that way for 5 years... what's one more?

I need to decompress for a bit, stow the gear in Sunny for travel, and then take a shower before bed. I'll be on my way in the morning! Sunny is being delivered to his first stop on the next day. I haven't yet gotten my head around the magnitude of this. And remember... if I don't blog tomorrow, it only means I don't have any cell service. There are no cliffs for me to fall off of just yet!

See First 2021 Interior Tour

Shout Out to the Pre-Hike Supporters

  There are three people who have been on my local pre-hike support team for many months. They've helped me more than they probably realize just by being, well... supportive.

You know that Sue came and helped with food two days. She's also going to be on the road with me for more time than probably anyone else. So, you'll hear lots more about her.

However, these three people are not going along on the trip, but each of them committed to keeping me motivated with the hiking earlier (actual preparation sort of overwhelmed that), and helping in various ways. Not in any particular order:

Loren hired me to do all that painting for her in the spring. She was in on the "secret" plan, even then, and she paid me full price to do that job. This financed a lot of the preparations. Her husband, Dave, is also in the picture.

Cathy also learned of my plan in the spring. She can't really take off to go along with me, but you know we've done a lot of hiking together this year. She's helped with a lot of work on the trailer, and added an extra brain to sorting out planning issues when two heads were definitely better than one. She's going to hike with me on day one, and she and her husband will deliver Sunny to the first spot where I am staying in the trailer.

Monica came into the loop later than those two, because I didn't meet her until this summer. But we quickly hit it off big time. We've hiked together, and she's helped with food and sewing and the trailer. She's also helped me figure out solutions to remaining issues. She'll hike with me on day 2 and 3. See, I've got insurance that I won't be quitting right out of the starting block. And, she JUST NOW brought me something that will provide a solution for yet another storage issue. We may be a similar kind of crazy... kinda scary!

I also want to say a big-time thanks to Omer. He really doesn't like the house to be a mess, and the poor guy married the Queen Mess-Maker. I'm not kidding when I say that I've outdone myself in trashing the place this time. With two days to go, I'm entering clean-up and put-away modes, but with ONLY two days to go, it's not going to be great when I leave. Also, he has run to the store when I needed some stray item, and he is going to be my support person for one month. That's definitely out of his comfort zone, so I really appreciate it. Here we were on Veteran's Day. It's a nice picture, so I'll use it.

Of course, I have to mention Marie, because we talked on the phone often, working out trailer details, since she has more trailer time than anyone except me. And she's my 100%, wind-beneath-my-wings, support person.

And there are a number of people who have prayed with me as I am getting ready to leave, and some who have committed to pray for me every single day. This means an awful lot to me, and I know it will help keep me going on the days that are less fun- there are bound to be some.

In other news: I finished everything I can do for now on the 2021 tax accounts. BIG ITEM. I finished the trailer cushions. BIG ITEM. I made one more pair of hiking pants for me. BIG ITEM. All the plants are gone. The trailer table is re-installed, and I'm getting things put away in their spaces and packing.

8 BIG ITEMS to complete, with almost certainly 5 of them to be dropped (54 done). 2 small items done that were on the list; tons more small ones to do, but some can be done after we are on the road- I just don't want to forget about them (71 done). 2 days to go. It's getting real.

See Letting the Secret Out of the Bag

Stocking the Trailer Pantry

  Five years ago, Marie and I started using this method to make evening meal prep in the trailer easy. The link below talks about it, and also shows you the inside of the trailer before I did anything except make curtains. What a difference!

Anyway... I wanted to start this adventure with some of these meal bags on hand in the trailer. Here's how it works. I buy shelf-stable products that can be made into a meal without adding much- maybe some sauted onion, or extra veggies. Originally, I put in a can of fruit and maybe some crackers. But we found that we always had some crackers open, and usually ate fresh fruit rather than canned. So now, each bag just has a main course. You can see the bags are labeled.

Here is one example. It has a box of Suddenly Salad Sweet Basil Pasta. The items added on the bag in lower case are things that could be added: tomatoes, cheese, etc. You can add meat to these as well. They are designed to be refrigerated and eaten as a salad, but they are also good as a hot meal.

Some of the bags just have cans of soup. Some have a sauce packet, some carb (rice, noodles, etc), and a can of meat (chicken, tuna, vienna sausages, etc). I ended up with 21 meals. My first helper, Sue, is comfortable with cooking without this level of preparation. That means these won't be used up in the first 21 days. And these kinds of meals are easily replaced at the grocery store. Some on my support team are not as confident of the kitchen tasks, so this kind of setup relieves them of figuring out meals. The bags store nicely in a box in one of the under-seat bins.

I usually have yogurt for breakfast, and lunch for me will be crackers with cheese and peanut butter, some vegs and a treat. As you know, the snack packs are already made up.

My needs for the evening meal are simple. Fill me up, give me carbs, maybe a cookie at the end. I love having a big salad for dinner, but we've found that lettuce doesn't keep all that well in the cooler. We might treat ourselves to a bag of mixed greens sometimes. Then we'd eat it all up quickly enough.

I bought a lot of discount stuff across the street over the last month as I saw things that would work for these meals. Last night, I organized my pile and made a list of things I need to add to call this job done. That is four cans of stuff. They go in the bags with the white tags. I'll get them tomorrow. So, I can't cross this one off yet (it's a BIG ONE), but I'm showing you now because there may be another BIG ONE done tomorrow too.

By the way... I did add up all that I've spent on food for this trip so far. I have 56 days of backpacking food. That is 3 meals and 1 snack pack (containing 2 items) per day, an additional 336 snack packs for day hiking, and now 21 trailer meals. That's a total of 581 meals or equivilents. The average cost per meal/equivalent is $1.30. I'm very pleased.

In other news: I was working on things that count by 10 am again. Worked on the trailer all day because the weather was reasonably mild. I'm getting really close to done on the "construction" items! Stay tuned.

20 BIG ITEMS to complete- (42 done). 45 small ones to do (38 done). 10 days to go. Very soon, I'll offially drop some of the BIG ONES off the list, but I'm not dumping them just yet.

See Pretty Much Ready to Go

Singing I Go Along Life's Road

  Do you know this chorus?
Singing I go along life's road,
Praising the Lord, praising the Lord.
Singing I go along life's road,
For Jesus has lifted my load.

Sure, I need to have all these required things done so I can even go walking for 365 days. But there has to be some preparation for what I will do to make those days more than just a mind-numbing walk. There will be picture-taking, and encounters with people, and plant study, and sky watching, I'm sure. But I know there will also be singing.

Years ago, I made up a little book called the "No Frills Personal Collection of Songs for the Trail." It's a combination of Girl Scout songs and Christian choruses and hymns.

I made them for my core hiking buddies, and they were well used. Keeping it in a plastic bag most of the time preserved it in a still readable condition.

But this will be a long hike! I had a list of songs I wanted to add anyway, and I had the computer files, so I wasn't starting from scratch. I ended up doubling the size of the book. Edition 2! Can you tell how many more pages it has?

I added a lot of hymns. Comparing the Christian life to a walk is commonplace. Colossians 1:10 says "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God"

But there are lots of fun songs to just fill a tiresome afternoon like "The Unicorn," "The Fox," "The Frozen Logger," etc. Many verses are a good thing on days like that.

No fancy bindings on these. The pages were clamped together, holes were drilled and cord tied through.

Since I'd first compiled that book, I'd also started collecting the music for the songs. I didn't really make note of how far I was on that project before I added so many songs, but anyway, now there are 207 songs, and I have the music for 166 of them. Not bad.

I'm taking my ukulele, and I got a tiny keyboard (a toy, really), but if it lasts a year of being bounced around in the trailer, that will be fine.

I'm hopeful that there will be lots of music in my life this year. I'll literally be "Singing I go along life's road..."

In other news. Well, I was up until 2 am finishing this project. But it means I can cross off a BIG ONE. I also get to cross off 2 small ones- one of which turned out to be pretty time consuming- but it's done now. Staying up so late meant I didn't wake up too early. But since I was awake at 3 am, I went internet surfing and found a solution for one of the big projects that may transform it to a small project. Today, I did errands and worked on the trailer all afternoon.

20 BIG ITEMS to complete- (42 done). 45 small ones to do (38 done). 11 days to go.

See A Book of Verses

Food is Done!

  I'm posting a little late because I wanted to finish this project. The food for the trip is DONE. 56 days worth of backpacking food, snacks for the whole rest of the year done as day hikes. It's all divided by sections of the trail, and who will deliver it. I get to cross off a HUGE item.

To create the snack sets, I made them up by first combining trail shakes with other things because there are more shakes than anything. About 2/3 of the days I get one shake. Then I made sets with bar and not bar, fruit and not fruit, candy and not candy, and finally anything that was left that didn't give me two of the same thing on the same day.

Then I divided them up by month. This wasn't quite as simple as creating equal numbers. The salty snacks needed to be concentrated in the hot months. December needs the 5 backpacking days taken out. August in Minnesota will have more backpacking than any other state, so it got fewer of these snack packs because the snacks for backpacking are already with the backpacking food.

Did you see the labels on the tubs above? I came up with 12 containers that aren't already in use- some not quite big enough- but they worked. Then I stuck on little month labels and started dividing them up. Random doesn't really work, because then you might get all the salty snacks and more shakes in October when you'd really rather have that kind of treat in July. And I didn't want to "accidentally" get most of the gorp in March, for example. Here are April - November. The tubs are all labeled, top and one side, with what they are and who is bringing them. December-February is going with me when I leave.

In other news: I worked on the trailer all afternoon and went to the store for more hardware. Maybe tomorrow I can cross another item off. We shall see.

Now 23 BIG ITEMS to complete (but you can be sure a few of them are simply going to not be done)- (39 done). 42 small ones to do (34 done). 15 days to go.

See Almost Food

Almost Food

  Sue came over this afternoon and we worked really hard. Here she is mixing trail shakes. The food is ALMOST done. I need to fill the dehydrator with apples overnight and do one more thing in the morning that requires an ingredient I will get across the street.

Here are tubs filled with bags of various items. I tried not to have too much just nutrition-poor candy, but I did get a few things. You've already heard that there are tootsie rolls in some of the meals. I got a big bag of Riesen candies because they travel well and they are SO good. I do have a weakness for chocolate. I am also trying some fruit chews called Hi-Chews. They look like they can also survive heat and they are nice and tart.

Other than that, it's mostly healthy. I rifled the discount bar tub and picked out the best ones. I bought some sausages at the dollar store. I don't eat a lot of meat snacks, but a few are fine. There are several different fruit and nut mixes, what I call "new age gorp" (walnuts, raisins and dark chocolate M&Ms), I bought a box of a seasonal Christmas Chex cereal-- it would be horrible for breakfast, but is pretty tasty for a snack, the salty mixes are already packed up so they aren't in this picture, the rest of the veggie snacks are here, and a mix with little crisp breads with almonds and yogurt-covered cranberries, and of course a LOT of trail shakes (I'll have one of those almost every day- a lot are already packed up and not pictured here).

I have no idea yet how much this all cost. I'll try to figure it out at some point. I managed to pick up a large number of things at the discount store, which made me feel better about a few more expensive things (like some dried cherries). I THINK I've managed to do this pretty economically.

I'm trying to clear out the food mess, so I can put boards in the kitchen to polyurethane. Maybe I can have them all done before the weather dries out enough to be getting out tools and running in and out of the trailer.

And quality control? Sophie and Anabelle approve! Sophie even curled up in my chair beside me for a few minutes when I took a break to check email and stuff.

In other news: I did not get to cross off a single thing, but three BIG ones are really close. I worked on a volunteer project that has to be done in the morning, and then the rest of the day was food and family, because, of course, Josh is having a crisis. Omer is mostly dealing with it (so thankful for that), but I am not completely off the hook. Had to run some errands this evening, one of which involved Cathy, who FED ME DINNER which I had not had time to have yet.

Still 25 BIG ITEMS to complete- (37 done). 38 small ones to do (32 done). 18 days to go.

See Backpacking Snacks