Coast to coast

At 5 p.m. PDT tomorrow afternoon, the lights in the editorial offices of Confused Ideas will blink off, the staff will be sent home, the banks of servers will whirr to a stop, a key will be turned in the lock, and ... your Chief Correspondent and Editor in Chief will head out the door.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'll be returning to the small, picturesque town of Kirkby Stephen, in the shadow of the Pennines of northern England -- the point where I ended my hike eastward across England from the Irish Sea at its half-way point a year ago.  I will resume the hike, completing the eastern half of the Coast to Coast path, crossing Yorkshire, and ending up at the North Sea ten days later.

I can then brag that I've crossed England twice on foot -- from east to west following Hadrian's Wall near the Scottish border in 2010, and from west to east farther south -- where England is much "fatter," some 190 miles by trail -- in 2015-16.

I will return home on July 26, my legs sturdier, my breath surer, my vowels more clipped, and licking a last few drops of English ale off my lips.  Confused Ideas from the Northwest Corner will resume publication shortly thereafter.