[at-l] "The Ordinary Adventurer" - Finally!

[Jan Leitschuh]

Hi all,

Okay, officially, I'm happy to say that
MY BOOK IS HERE!

It's been a long, long road. LOL.

I just got my shopping cart and website working smoothly yesterday with a few test orders, and was intending to make an announcement today here anyway. Since you guys grew me from a hiking seed, there is a poetic justice to this.

There are also been a motley cast of AT-L characters involved with the book: "Thee" Clyde, my creative whip-cracker and talented editress Neener-Neener Waterfall Baxley-Rogers, my reader/proofers Linda eArThworm Patton, Smith Old Ridge Runner Edwards and Cindy Mrs. Gorp-Yolanda Miller, as well as AT-L characters Art Gabby Cloutman and Suz Buchannan, who also transcribed my AT journal.

The "national rollout" won't be until late October, when reviewers have had their chance to read it and write reviews. Until well after the Gathering, the book will be available to the hiking community only on my website http://www.FunFreedom.com

For hikers considering the Long Trail, there's also some useful resuppply info and a map on there as well under "Trail Info." I tried to put up the stuff I wanted to know before I hiked it, and couldn't find.

In the book I tried to portray that newbie enthusiasm/obsession/preparation/freakout one gets when first smitten with the notion of long-distance hiking.

Though at the time I couldn't hike "The Big One" - the A.T. - I was able to carve a month from my working life to tackle the venerable Long Trail of Vermont to see if I had "the right stuff" for a six-month-plus hike. Clyde joined me for reasons of his own, mainly to see if his heart could survive 1,500-foot ascents without bursting after a major heart attack five years earlier. ;-) 
He was challenging his own "Big One."

Though we were perhaps not the best match-up - in many ways, wildly mismatched - the trek, as the book says "frog-marched us to an unlikely journey of adventure and friendship."
We have remained friends to this day.

You can read the Preface to the book online 
at http://www.longtrailfestivalvt.com
by hitting Events/Program on the right, and then "Ordinary Adventurer".

If anyone is in the area of Rutland, VT on or around August 17-18, stop by the LT Festival2007. I will be speaking and presenting  "The Ordinary Adventurer", and "THEE" MAF Clyde "Right Turn" Speilberg has also agreed to "put in an appearance." 

The first Long Trail Festival is also promising to be a mini-Ruck, with Grey Owl, Art, Suz, Mrs Gorp, Old Ridge Runner, me, Clyde and a bunch more planning to come. Free food and camping!


Thanks,
Jan "LiteShoe" Leitschuh
LT '02
AT '03
Book '07
;-)

PS I apologize in advance if you see this on other lists, I'm just trying to get the word out, not be obnoxious. 
And, if you like the book, would you mind telling someone else? I'm doing this on a shoestring, and Word of mouth is the best endorsement of all. Of course, if you hate it, you can use it, as Hot Dog suggested, as fire starter at The Gathering. ;-)