Dennis

Ummm…. WOW! After yesterday’s outing, Mike and I were tempted to claim today as a restorative day off to nurse sore shoulders (well – one sore shoulder that would be Dennis’) and overall fatigue.  But this morning presented a different idea. We would walk today and take tomorrow as our rest day. After all, today’s course was a mere 9 1/2 miles with a single climb at the beginning. The day’s weather forecast called for  […]

My description of today’s hike can be summed up thus: grueling; taxing; satisfying; awe-inspiring; aches; fatigue.  But WORTH EVERY BIT OF THAT! But the thing that I’ve fixated on today is the names of the places and geographical features of this landscape. After breakfast today we left the sleepy village of Rosthwaite that is nestled comfortably next to Longthwaite in the lush Borrowdale Valley.  Our path took us along the babbling cool waters of the […]

Olivia, Damian and Riley – I MISS YOU. But here’s a picture that you will like – especially Olivia.  I hope you’re getting up early and getting to school on time. This trip is great fun but I can’t wait to see you guys again! A real mushroom seen along the shores of Ennerdale Water (Someone look it up.)

This was a day of epic adventures by any standard! It started in a routine way when we sat down next to Haimish and Amanda for a full Cumbrian breakfast at the B&B. We departed at 8 :45 for what was billed as a 15 mile walk – the longest in the Lake District – with a single but rather short hard climb just after the halfway point. The ascent began as expected just beyond […]

Today was a day of challenges.  Perhaps the biggest challenge on a day like this one that occurs at the beginning of any new adventure and that is the challenge of the unknown. Mike and I have both read the books and watched the videos. We’ve completed practice walks with backpacks and trekking poles. A personal trainer was enlisted to show us how to rehabilitate 70-year-old muscles at the end of an arduous day.  But […]

I am sitting in my room at the Stonehouse Inn B&B in St. Bees, Cumbria, UK. For the past 20 hours or so I have forbidden myself to remark how smoothly this trip has gone so far. Every flight – three of them – was on time and without turbulence. Every connection went smoothly with sufficient time for trips to the loo or to grab a coffee or a bite to eat. The trains were […]

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So here it is – THE day. In a couple of hours Mike and I board the first flight which will take us on a paradoxically westerly direction – to Detroit. Then we board a KLM flight over the north friggin’ pole to Amsterdam. Finally, tomorrow morning, we’ll wing across the North Sea to Manchester UK where trains will cart us to the Cumbria coast at St. Bees. The preparations for this trip have been […]

Mike and I have done everything I can think of to prepare for our departure on Sunday. What remains is to log on tonight to finalize our planned train ride from Manchester to St. Bees. And I suppose we may also book a hotel for the return trip – we need to stay in Manchester for one night after we wend our way back from Robin Hood’s Bay. Clothing, medications, equipment are all assembled on […]

Mike and I will depart on our 200-mile walking adventure in one week. An interesting thing happens to me when I am on the cusp of such an outsized challenge. The obituaries, which I read through every day, are suddenly printed in boldface type and the ages of the dead appear in a large font – 57, 64, 70! It is not that I worry that the trip will do me in at the age […]