This American Hike

One of my favorite radio programs is "This American Life" on NPR. You can find the program archive here. I listen to it when I work in the garage, on my computer, driving in the car, and working in the yards. Many of the programs are from a very liberal perspective but I still find them interesting and thought provoking. Here is a classic episode about summer camp.

I read someone's thru-hiking blog and they complained that their brain was turning to mush without some external stimulation. That's when I had the idea of capturing the entire "This American Life" program archive and put the episodes on my tiny mp3 player so I can enjoy them on the trail. I have to capture the audio in real time, which means that each one hour episode takes one hour to capture. So far I have 325 of the 500+ episodes and I hope to have them all by the time I leave. I have room for about 100 episodes at a time on my mp3 player, so each month, when Eva meets me on the trail; I'll update my mp3 player with new episodes. I'm thinking I might call my hike: "This American Hike," and when I return from Canada they can do a story about me!

Beside "This American Life" I also have all the episodes of "Radio Lab," an entire audio Bible, some favorite sermons, and about 50 hours of music. I think I will have plenty of stimulation to keep my brain from turning to mush! Keep calm and hike on!