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Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis

Episode #85 - Art Donovan (CraftE)

Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis

Steve Adams

Sports, Wilderness

4.8599 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2018

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A member of the Class of 2018, Art Donovan is fulfilling a dream that his mother had 50 years ago. With retirement came the desire to cross the AT off his bucket list, honoring both his mother and assisting her plight by raising funds for Alzheimer's Disease. He's even found the time to leave the trail to become an American Citizen.

Art has had quite the adventure so far, sharing time with one of his daughters on the trail and saving the last 30 miles of the Smokey Mountains for his other daughter after she has given birth later in the year. Below, Art is at MacAfee Knob.

You can follow Art's adventure on Facebook, where you'll also have the chance to donate to Alzheimer's should you so wish.

We also heard this week from Stacey Bucklin, or Stylez, in "If I Did It Again." Stylez leaves us with a memorable quote to consider. 

Our Merch Store now has a pink Hiking Radio Network logo for tee shirts, hoodies, mugs etc. We hope that you like it.

Don't forget to visit the site of our wonderful sponsor, Trailtopia

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You are listening to the Hiking Radio Network, where we talk the walk with shows by hikers,

0:05.4

about hikers, for everybody. Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail, the ultimate midlife crisis,

0:23.9

joins Stephen his guests every week as he staggers from Georgia to Maine.

0:33.6

Hello and welcome back to episode number 85 of Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail,

0:38.9

sponsored as always by a Trialopia.

0:42.2

We've got a kind of Canadian guy on the show today.

0:45.5

Art Donovan, or his order ego, Crafty, is today's guest.

0:51.0

Bruce Mattson from one of our other podcasts, returning to Catardin, suggested that I should chat with art.

0:56.6

The two of them are class of 2018 hikers and have hiked around each other for some time.

1:01.9

I thought it would be good to get another perspective on this incredibly cold start to the hiking year.

1:07.6

And Crafty, or Crafty, is a laid-back guy who has his own story to tell we spoke when he was

1:14.5

actually on the trail so there's a bit of background wind from time to time though in my opinion

1:18.5

that sometimes adds a bit of authenticity to the recordings i think it's great that i can speak to

1:24.1

people who are halfway up a mountain sharing their views with us all.

1:29.8

Craft Day will be on soon.

1:32.9

This week in... If I hit it again.

1:35.5

We have the lovely Stacey Bucklin or Stiles.

1:38.5

And while there are a few things that she may have done differently,

1:41.4

she does give us a wonderful lesson that she learned

1:45.2

near the end of her hike. Listen out for that. Before all that, of course, we have, do you remember

1:51.8

those times on the trail when you really needed to treat yourself? You know, those days when you

1:57.0

fall in the mud or the rain starts running down your neck, the rocks are driving you crazy, or even when you're just fed up.

...

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