A Short Walk on the Long Trail: A Couple's Sauntering on the Vermont Long Trail

by Jane V. Blanchard, Dennis Blanchard

Overview

2022 Gold Medal Recipient from Florida Authors and Publishers Association,

I plodded like Godzilla and sounded like Darth Vader.

Jane and Dennis Blanchard never do anything the easy way, and their myriad adventures hiking the Vermont Long Trail during a summer of record-breaking cold temperatures and unprecedented rainfall were just another of a series of challenges the couple has faced over their 45-year-plus marriage.

Without Dennis, this would be a different adventure. Not only is he companionable, but he also carried the tent.

The Blanchards are accomplished long-distance hikers, having completed the Camino Francés, the Camino Portugués, and Hadrian's Wall Path. Dennis hiked the Appalachian Trail solo, and his epic Georgia-to-Maine trek was interrupted only when he decided to drive home for six-artery bypass surgery. Talented writers, both Jane and Dennis have turned their adventures into gripping accounts full of humorous insights and pithy observations about people, Nature, and what happens when people and Nature meet—on Nature's terms.

Why is it when you have clean clothes and smell decent, there is always a storm to ensure that you start smelling like a wet animal?

Their most recent book, A Short Walk on a Long Trail, is full of hard-won, practical advice for novice and experienced hikers alike. This story contains many unexpected twists and turns, from the PUDs (pointless ups and downs) to kind-hearted, generous Vermonters, from a debilitating upper respiratory infection to Nature in all its glory: spectacular sunsets, occasional vistas, drenching rain, clinging mud, and lots of bugs. Jane and Dennis explore the nuances of hiking solo versus hiking as a couple with candor and wry wit and poke fun at themselves and their relationship while sounding a clarion call for Americans, especially older Americans, to stay active and explore the beauty of our natural environment.

The uncertainty of hiking is thrilling. There is always something new around the bend, over the hill, or further up the road.

Join Jane and Dennis on another big adventure! A Short Walk on a Long Trail is a must-read for everyone contemplating a long-distance hike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781668506660
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	06/16/2021
Edition description:	First Release ed.
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Dennis Blanchard grew up in Connecticut, an area that offered wilderness experiences and animal encounters. There, roaming as a "free-range" kid, he honed his skills as an outdoorsman and free spirit.

In 1972, Jane Blanchard, also from Connecticut, worked as a travel guide in Madrid, Spain. Then, in 1975, she and her husband lived in a tent in Winchendon, Massachusetts, for six months (until December) while building a log cabin. Then, after two years of living off the grid, they lived self-sufficiently on a five-acre "gentleman's" farm. Afterward, they lived in New Hampshire for twenty-four years.

Dennis never lost his love of the outdoors. In 2007, he hiked the Appalachian Trail, which always beckoned him. His hiking adventures include other great trails, such as various Caminos, Hadrian's Wall Path, and the Vermont Long Trail. He is also an avid bicyclist, circumventing Nova Scotia with Jane and then a solo coast-to-coast ride.

Dennis has authored for magazines such as QST (an amateur radio journal) and other technical periodicals as an electronics engineer and avid ham radio enthusiast. He has also written for motorcycle and bicycle adventure magazines. When not off wandering in the woods or cycling the country's byways, he now lives in captivity in Sarasota, Florida.

Jane V. Blanchard is the author of the Woman on Her Way series. Her books describe hiking adventures. She enjoys biking and hiking and, over her lifetime, climbed twenty of the forty 4,000-foot mountains in New England. She retired in 2011 to walk 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago in Spain—her first long walk.

Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino mingles Jane's personal story with conversations she had with other modern-day female pilgrims on the Camino. In her award-winning Hadrian's Wall Path: Walking into History, Jane shares her discoveries along the 84-mile path across England.

In her 50s, Jane started mountain biking and racing, placing second in the 2002 Eastern Fat Tire Association Senior Division. "Even though I was not the fastest competitor, I attended and competed in most of that year's races. Like with the turtle and the hare, slow and consistent wins over fast but sporadic."

Since marrying in 1974, Jane and Dennis have created a lifetime of memories. Now in their 70s, the couple is still making memories, experiencing life as fully as possible, and looking forward to a long future. "We must live long enough to write about all our adventures."