Happy Nude Hiking Day!

OK, it's really the Summer Solstice, but to long-distance hikers, it is Nude Hiking Day. In 2001, I was hiking through the Shenandoahs on June 21st, so I didn't hike nude. Why, you may ask? Well, because I didn't want to freak out the little children and their parents (tourists) that I encountered multiple times a day as the trail crossed the Blue Ridge Parkway. I didn't think that little children should be exposed to adult hiker nudity. Way too hairy, believe me!

I did see several hikers who hiked nude, though -- using bandanas for strategic coverage. Let's see, the trail names of those folks were Hippy Longstocking, and a couple of others I can't remember . . . maybe Stovetop? I know that my buddies Skidmark and Balloo hiked naked in 2003, cause that's the kind of folks they are. Fun-loving and crazy. Anyone who takes their three-month old on her first camping trip has my complete love and respect.

It's been a week or so of helping Continental Divide Trail (CDT) thru-hikers. Today we shuttled Sly to Cheyenne, so he could take a bus to Glacier in Montana; and we dropped Haiku off at the bus station, where he's taking a bus to Denver as I write this. None of them were naked, by the way.

I spent a good bit of time today -- no, not being naked, get your mind out of the gutter! -- checking the edits of my fantastic chapter authors. You should know that almost all of them got their edits back to me within the deadline, and they did an excellent job of addressing all of the queries posted by the publisher. I just had one clarification to make, and it was easy. All of THAT makes me a happy co-editor.

I have a manuscript to review, a dissertation to read, and a manuscript to revise, but maybe I'll get to all of those tomorrow . . . when it's NOT nude hiking day.