Play MYNCT Bingo and Win Books

There are SO many wonderful places on the North Country Trail!

Play MYNCT Bingo and WIN A BOOK. Send me pictures that complete any row of 5, and your name will go in a drawing. 1 copy of North Country Quest, and 1 copy of North Country Cache will be awarded. You do NOT have to have visited these places or taken the pictures personally. You can hunt up pictures on line. However, if you can make a line of places you have actually been to you will get two entries for that card. (Just be sure to tell me.)

Enter as often as you want, as long as you complete a different line (that makes 12 possible entries per person, upped to 24 if you've really been to all those places!) Send entries to jhyshark@gmail.com. Label the pics somehow with the card location. For example T-1 is the Crown Point Bridge, and I might enter this picture for that square. But now you can't steal this one for your own entry- that would be too easy! Deadline for entries April 30, 2020. #myNCTbingo

space T-1, Crown Point Bridge (photo by jhy)

North Country Cache and North Country Quest together tell the stories of my end-to-end hike of the North Country National Scenic Trail. I was the first woman to complete the 4600-mile trail on foot.

North Country Quest - Cover

After almost 9 years of working on North Country Quest, it's ready to go to the printer! The writing was sporadic for about 7 years, as I branched off into fiction. In 2018 I began to get more serious. In 2019, it's essentially all I've done. Even so, I didn't manage to finish until 2020. But here we are.

This book is even better than North Country Cache. The writing is better. There are more pictures. Hopefully, the printing quality of the cover will be better (long unhappy story that I have to relive every time I look at a copy of NCC).


Today, I'm sharing the cover of the new volume. The design is the same as for the first one, but with pictures that go with these stories.

The image above is the front and spine. Here is the back cover with recommendations by Frida Waara, Polar Adventurer, and Jennifer Pharr Davis, National Geographic Adventurer of the Year.

The book will be first available, publicly, at the Quiet Adventure Symposium in East Lansing, MI, on February 29.




See Too Fast at Car Speed for a sample of the first chapter.

Writing is More than Words

The writing life is more than just putting words on paper. Particularly if you are an indie author. If you are independent, you actually are running a small business.

Here are some of the pieces of what I've been doing for the last few days.

1. I received a notice from the State of Michigan that I hadn't paid my 2015 sales tax and that I owed mega bucks. Went to my tax person, who is out of town, but I made an appointment. Another person there looked at the numbers and my paperwork and agreed that this wasn't even my account. So this issue is going to take a while to sort out.

2. I tried to continue transferring the tapes I made while hiking to digital before they get too old and dried out. This is where I left off in April of 2018, noted in the post linked below. However:
      A. This computer has no external microphone jack
           i. I looked up how to get around that and the answer appeared to be a USB mic jack
           ii. Went to my computer person to verify this. He said yes, he had one, downloaded all the drivers for me and made sure it was working. Problem solved with a small investment
      B. I had to sort the tapes which were all in a box and labeled, but needed to get them in order.
      C. I had to download audacity again since the computer crash
           i. It needed one more driver that doesn't come with it.
           ii. I had to figure out how to use it again.
      D. I'm now actually transferring tapes to digital!
           i. This needs to happen to keep the audio recordings from degrading
           ii. I need to have several of the next ones on my computer before I go east, so I can write while I'm on the road.

3. I have to get all my 2018 records for taxes ready before I leave on my trip east, because the tax appointment is almost immediately after I get home.

4. I am trying to get my head back around where I was with North Country Quest. Thought I might have lost part of a chapter, but I think I hadn't written anything down yet, so I just need to recover what I was thinking about.

Perhaps some words will get typed today.

See What Does an Author Do All Day

Meanders and Undulations

Chapter 2 in North Country Quest is done. Title is "Meanders and Undulations."



This hike was East Fork State Park in Ohio (and a little more on each end). I had a lot of it written already, but as I said in the post linked below I was having trouble making it work. The problem was that although these first two hikes connected geographically, they were separated by several days, were different in character, and needed to be two different chapters. Now I've got it sorted out!

Here's how it starts:

Deb is excited about backpacking together. She is a friend from the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the North Country Trail Association, our home chapter in Michigan. The NCTA works to build, protect and promote the trail, and there are thirty chapters along its length. Thousands of volunteers donate millions of hours to keep the pathway in good shape. But, to my knowledge, usually in the daytime.

Debbie meets me in Williamsburg, Ohio. We take my car to Batavia and I ride my bike back to Williamsburg. Deb sits outside a grocery store and waits for me to return. I recently asked her how she spent the time. “I read War and Peace, helped an old lady cross the street, and started writing a novel based on our hike,” she said.

Dang, that must be the slowest I ever rode eight miles in my life!

I ask permission to lock my bicycle to a post outside the store for the days until we return. Of course they won’t take any responsibility, but at least I can be fairly sure they won’t have the lock cut and take the bike to the police station as abandoned.

We adjust packs, distribute the shared parts of the load and set off for East Fork State Park. After only two miles we find our first obstacle, the East Fork of the Little Miami River. The map assures us it’s usually shallow but has very slippery rocks. We switch to sandals and carefully ford the wide waterway. Neither of us takes a dunking, but it’s always amazing to me how long it takes to walk a couple hundred feet under difficult circumstances.

We soon join the Perimeter Trail of the park, and the map informs us that the trail “meanders and undulates generally, more-or-less...” Deb and I have a laugh at the terminology, but we should only consider ourselves forewarned.

In other good news, the local bookstore took six sets of my Dubois Files children's mysteries today.

See Too Fast at Car Speed- chapter 1

Too Fast at Car Speed

swamp at sunrise in East Fork State Park, Ohio (photo by jhy)

I'm sitting here surrounded by maps, files and a box of photos. Yes, I'm working on North Country Quest again. There have been several false starts, over the past seven (yes 7) years, but I'm hopeful this won't be yet another of those misfortunes. That said, I'm leaving town for three weeks on April 23, and this is not a good project to work on while away from home base. But at least I'll get a few chapters done before then.

I figured out what was wrong with my previous opening chapter. I was trying to force it to be something it was not. Of course one can tweak a chapter to give it a certain flavor, but above all, my account in North Country Cache was honest, and I want to continue that plan.

So the previous first chapter will now be the second chapter, and the new first chapter is "Too Fast at Car Speed."

And, except for tweaks, I think it's done. Here's how it starts:

“The world moves too fast at car speed,” I grumble into the tape recorder, the annoyance clear in my voice.

North Country Cache ended with an eagle “seeing” the whole trail. North County Quest begins with a grasshopper who can’t see where it’s going.

Two heavy green thighs push out, then thrust backward in unison, propelling the slim body of the grasshopper through the water with a frog kick. I laugh out loud at the absurdity of its cross-species motions. Who knew that grasshoppers can swim? He has taken on a daunting task, this little summer insect, to swim across a creek hundreds of times the length of his body. I wonder if he is even aware of the far bank, or is he just responding in desperation to an unintended watery landing after a careless jump?

I feel a bit like a grasshopper myself. Here I am again, sitting in the damp vegetation on the bank of some unnamed creek, soaking my hot feet and eating a crackers-and-cheese lunch in the middle of a hiking day, in the middle of a hiking life, in the middle of a hiking trail.

The trail is, of course, the North Country National Scenic Trail, and I’m beginning a theoretical second half of my quest to hike the whole thing. It’s theoretical because this trail will be under construction for many more years. The exact length changes every year as new sections are built and taken off road, or previous routes changed for various reasons. Just two weeks ago my distance hiked-to-date totaled 2300 miles, half of the 4600 estimated miles of trail which stretch from New York to North Dakota. Thus, I’m now, like the grasshopper, past the point of no return. Every step and every day on the trail from this point forward will be a countdown to completion. It looks as if the grasshopper will make it across the stream before I finish eating. My journey will take longer.

In fact, I’ve already been working on hiking this trail for thirteen years. Mine is not a race to the finish line. Rather, I choose to sample the seven states of the NCT in smaller bites, savoring the local flavor of each piece. However long it takes is not the issue for me. Instead, I want to know this trail: its moods, its secret places, its windings through history and the local cultures. If it takes another thirteen years, so be it.

I'm trying to act more like a serious writer... writing nearly every day, not just when the muse is hot. I've managed that amazingly well for the past three months, actually getting the first three Dubois Files books out on my planned schedule. Now it's time to keep that going.

And, yes, I'm glad you noticed, this picture is the one used for the cover of News from Dead Mule Swamp. I took it at sunrise after a night in the car at East Fork State Park, in SW Ohio.

See Picking Up the Quest

Picking up the Quest

It's always a challenge to pick up a project that's been laid aside numerous times. Today was certainly no exception to that.

After a long, long absence from working on it, I started to think again about finishing North Country Quest. This is the sequel to North Country Cache. It will complete the tales of my hikes on the North Country Trail.

There are four chapters done, and a few more partially done. That's a long way from completion. And yet... if I get busy, these chapters are not difficult to write. I just need to refresh my memory.

Today, I assembled all the chapters and partial chapters into one file. I listened to the tape journal for the hike that will be the first story in this volume, and went through the pictures for that hike, all to refresh my memories. Chapter one had been partially written, and I like how I began it, so now, I just need to build on that foundation.

Oh, and I looked up how to transfer all my tape journals to digital. Not difficult... just need to do it.

No cases were assigned to me this week for the insurance job, so I'm determined to use the time to focus on writing again. One day out of one is 100% so far this week!

Chapter One "Meanders and Undulations"

With some concentrated effort yesterday, I got an actual beginning for North Country Quest that I like.

I'm at 443 words, and have the opening written and the concept for the way the chapter will come back to a conclusion.

I borrowed ideas on perspective from a passage in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard that I've always loved. Hopefully my efforts will be somewhat as appealing.

When I finish each chapter I may share a tidbit here. I'm thinking about that.

I Spent an Hour and Wrote 44 Words

I spent an hour yesterday on chapter 1 of North Country Quest and wrote 44 words, of which 22 are going to be moved to the preface, and the rest are junk.

Why am I so slow? It's all part of the writing process. I listened to part of the tape again. I made two additional false starts and deleted them as horrible. I looked up the section of this hike on the map and read the description. I opened my mapping software and tried to find the name of a creek where I ate lunch (it has no name). I spent some time just getting the memories of that hike arranged in my head. Some were very clear, and others I had to work on.

I've had the name of this chapter, "Meanders and Undulations," settled since the date of the hike (October 2003). It's a phrase taken from the actual trail map description, and it's a perfect lead-in to the second half of my meandering journey along the North Country Trail.

But the next step, getting a catchy opening on to paper (screen), isn't that simple. I think maybe I've got an idea now. We'll see if I can get somewhere with that today.

This first chapter not only has to be an essay about the particular hike, but be an opener to the entire second volume, so it needs to be GOOD.

A Meager Beginning, but Working on North Country Quest

Somehow, I have to work on both North Country Quest and Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp at the same time. I honestly don't know how possible that is going to be because I usually get my head so deeply inside one idea at a time that there isn't room for much else.

Nevertheless, I found the tape covering the hike that will be the first chapter of NCQ today, and began to listen to it. I already know what the theme of the chapter will be. Each chapter in North Country Quest and North Country Cache is an essay that can pretty much stand on its own, so as soon as I know the thematic idea the essay is usually fairly easy to write. However, the fact that this will be the first chapter of the second book means that it needs a lot more filling out.

The book is following the format of the first book, a continuation and completion of the hike along the North Country Trail. In some ways, finishing the story excites me, and in some ways it seems boring. I think I can't really tell until I get into it. But, in either case, I've made a commitment to write the second book.

They say the most difficult part of any journey is the first step... so I've made a first step.

Editor for North Country Quest

This has been a crazy busy week. Barely time to get necessary things done, so writing of any kind took a big hit.

However, today I spent the day with my hiking/biking/writing buddy, Ellen. She confirmed that she will help edit North Country Quest, and urged me to get busy on it.

I also re-read a couple of my short stories. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I still think they are pretty good. All but one is being published at some point through Twin Trinity Books. So that leaves one story hanging out by itself. If I could get my act together, I should write some others to go with it and put it out in an ebook, right?

It's About Time to Work on North Country Quest

Here's the deal- The book North Country Cache tells the stories of my first 2300 miles of hiking on the North Country Trail. I've always said that there was going to be a sequel with the final 2100 miles, called North Country Quest. I even have several chapters all done. (Each hike is a separate essay, with some continuity between, but they can almost stand on their own)

But some things happened this past fall, things that made me angry with the trail people and very hurt. For quite a while I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to continue to be involved with the trail. That was pretty tough sledding, since the trail has been just about the biggest thing in my life for 20 years. (Behind faith and family)

I seem to be coming to grips with all of that. Finally.

Yesterday, I needed a piece of info for the article I was writing. I couldn't find it anywhere, but I was pretty sure it was in one of the chapters for NCQ that I had done. So I went to open that file. I couldn't find it! Now this was serious. It was a long chapter, covering one of the longest hikes we did in a continuous piece, and I was happy with what I had written (as far as I could remember).

PANIC. The computer that the NCQ chapters is on had crashed once, maybe twice since I had written "A is for Asphalt" (the title of that chapter). So I went hunting. Couldn't find a paper copy... not good- always make a paper copy in case of total electronic meltdown. Couldn't find that I had put those chapters on a CD. Wow...

So I hunted through my email files, knowing that I had sent it to Marie, my hiking buddy. I found it! Whew.

The bottom line is that I need to start working on this project with some diligence. I may actually be ready to do so.

Here is the opening of "A is for Asphalt:"

Marie and I are trudging down the Ohio road. It's the next-to-the-last day of this hike, but despite being mid-summer it's the first of our days together which has been uncomfortably hot. Not only is it hot, but
this section of road is almost boring. For the first time we can see more than a few hundred feet of the road ahead. As we have walked farther and farther north the terrain has flattened a bit, and the valleys are wider. We can sometimes see a half-mile ahead before the road crests or curves out of sight in front of us.

Glancing down at the sticky black surface beneath our boots I notice the letter "A" has been spray-painted on its surface. "A is for asphalt," I quip. "B is for bulldozer," Marie counters. We continue through an alphabet "for boys," and discover that we've walked almost two miles by the time we arrive at "zipper front fly."

"Shall we try it for girls?" We seem to have a lot more trouble filling a list between "apron" and "zip-loc bags." This time we've filled almost an hour and three more miles have slipped beneath our feet. Plus we've had a good laugh at ourselves for degenerating into stereotypes we don't believe in.