Ireland/UK Day 16 July 6, 2023 16 miles hiked It’s the last day of the trail, and I’m not ready for it to be. I think that’s why it takes me so long to get ready this morning, or perhaps that’s just because of how I am as a person. In any case, I enjoy …
Ireland/UK Day 15 July 5, 2023 21 miles hiked Getting ready to leave the bunkhouse is a little bit of a struggle. I knock my water bottle off the bed, wrestle with the duvet cover and fitted sheet, try and fail to remember where and how I pack things, and eventually get myself passably together …
Ireland/UK Day 14 July 4, 2023 13 miles hiked The best bit about staying in a bed and breakfast is the breakfast. Ours is large, filling, and very Scottish; I think I consume an entire day’s worth of sodium in the bacon alone. There’s also homemade marmalade and preserves, which the owners make themselves. As …
Ireland/UK Day 12 July 2, 2023 15.4 miles hiked Despite feeling like absolute death last night, I feel pretty good this morning—after stretching anyway. I guess this achilles thing is just going to be for life. I need to make sure I do better with doing all of my stretches every single day, before and …
Ireland/UK Day 11 July 1, 2023 19.3 miles hiked I’m out of practice with getting ready for a long hiking day. I fumble around with the coffee maker, pack some things, forget some other things I was going to pack, have to repack, mess up the Nespresso somehow, the simplest coffee maker ever, have to …
Continue reading West Highland Way Day 1: Milngavie to Balmaha
Friday, June 30, 2023 How is it already the last day of June? I don’t know where time goes and why it still surprises me that it goes there. Today’s a travel day. We wake up with the alarms and pack up our stuff in the Dublin apartment. It was really nice to stay in …
Wednesday, June 28, 2023 *Note: This post contains a lot of historical and political information that was told to us directly by a person with a clear bias. I fact-checked afterwards with research of my own, but it's still likely that I got things wrong. If you're an expert in this area and have a …
Continue reading Ireland and UK Day 8: Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway
Tuesday, June 27, 2023 Mom goes out for a walk this morning for a few hours. I drink a couple of slow coffees, write, and mess around on the internet, and am reminded of zero days on trail. I didn’t often succeed in getting up before my tramily on these days, but there were a …
I miss writing about the trail every day. I miss posting things on the Internet and having people read them. I'm not on a thru-hike right now, it's true, but there are still so many words inside me that are itching to get out. That's why I decided to start a newsletter! It's called Somewhere …
Continue reading I Made a Newsletter, and Here’s Why You Should Subscribe
One whole rotation of the sun ago, I stood at the monument in Campo, California, and started walking north on the Pacific Crest Trail. I wanted to write a long, meandering, weepy reflection on this day like I tend to do, but I don't think I have it in me. I really should be grading. …
Sarahmarie Specht-Bird 