In the summer and fall of 2022, I hiked a lot of miles in these western counties. To save gas and miles driving out there from Ithaca, I planned two consecutive days of hiking and stayed overnight in a motel. Robert was my frequent hiking buddy on these trips. But after planning two days of hiking in September, Robert could only make it on the second day. I wanted to cover almost seven miles on the first day, about half in the woods on Map 5 and the rest was road walk on Map 4. I reached out to hikers on the Finger Lakes Trail list-serve, but no one was available. However, Joyce Ermer offered to be my car spotter. She could meet me at one end and drive me over to the starting point so I could hike back to my car, alone.

The important part of this story is that my wife, Elizabeth, REALLY doesn’t like it when I hike alone. She worries about me. She is a worrier in general. To try to ease her fears, I showed her on the map how this part in the woods was never very far from the road. There happened to be no hills to climb, so it was unlikely that I would fall. And then the rest would be easy road walk. After much cajoling and many promises that I would be exceedingly careful, she reluctantly gave the OK.

When I arrived at the meeting place, Joyce was there and, to my surprise, she was putting on her hiking boots! She said, “Do you mind if I join you?” I couldn’t wait to call Elizabeth and tell her she could stop worrying!