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Walking Across England: 210 Miles on the Coast to Coast Trail | Travel, Hiking & Emergency Preparedness · The Alerting Authority

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Jeanette Sutton.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I am Eddie Bertola.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we welcome you to this special episode of the Alerting Authority.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, we encourage you to subscribe, follow, listen, and most importantly, participate in these podcasts.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We want your questions, concerns, ideas, problems, pain points, and success stories so we as alerting authorities can better do our jobs and make our communities safer.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as far as this episode, why it's special, is because we're not going to do that much of alerting here and talk about it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: But for those that don't know, we we actually have an international audience.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have people that do listen from different parts of the world.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's fun to connect with them.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so as they have reached out, I know recently I was telling um Jeanette, contacted by you know a company in Australia, and there are multiple others that have reached out.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can provide content or help answer questions, even for you who are listening across the pond or whatever it may be, um please let us know.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And today is different too because as you notice, Jeanette is back.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: She is back in the United States.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just like for those that traveled here for FIFA, um, she went to England herself.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we have talked about this for a number of episodes, this big trip that she was going to do.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I asked her, because I have heard little bits and pieces too, to kind of give us a little rundown on what it was, because this is not a little thing.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: She first described it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, and then we can just start with it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is you literally walked across the whole of England as a vacation.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go ahead and put up my slides so you can see.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if anybody's joining our call and as a podcast, if you want to actually see pictures from what we did, um, you know, go ahead and look at the YouTube version and you can you can see my little slideshow where I show some some fun pictures of things that we saw on our walk.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, we walked across the whole of England.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh it was um the the Alfred Wainwright Trail, which is also known as the Coast to Coast Trail, and it was made into a national trail this year.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's been in existence for many, many years because Alfred Wainwright um he started walking this trail and creating it several decades ago.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a a really lovely little monument to him and at one point along the trail.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, he's mentioned by all of the people who take this trail.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the coast to coast trail was made national this spring, and it is officially 192 miles long.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but with diversions and other things that happen when you can't find um a hotel to stay along the trail, you end up adding miles.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we ended up doing 210 miles in 15 days.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I think it's gonna be fun.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: One thing that if you remember our conversation with um the former FEMA administrator, Miss Criswell, and some others, there are a bunch of people that like to do this type of thing.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so if you are interested in this at all, have I think it's gonna be super fun.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's also just another fun opportunity to get to know Jeanette just a little bit and to kind of see how crazy she is, thinking this is a vacation, right?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm kidding.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I mean I I honestly want to hear because as she was telling me about it, it makes me want to do something just outdoors or similar.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So let's hear it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, so the first picture that I put up is the map of the coast to coast walk, and you can see um the the Alfred Rainwright always suggested that you start on the west and have the westing the westward winds pushing you east.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you start on the west in St.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: B's, and you dip your toes in the Irish Sea, and then you walk through three different national parks: the Lake District, which is very mountainous, the Yorkshire Dales, and the North York Moors National Park, which is a lot of moors.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then at the end, you end in Robin Hood's Bay in at the North Sea, where you dip your boots in the North Sea.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we followed this map.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, staying in most of the places that are listed here.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we stayed in St.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: B's, we stayed at Enerdale Bridge, Rothschwaite.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: We did not stay at Patterdale, we stayed at Glen Ridding, we stayed in Shap, we stayed in Kirkby Stephen, Keld, Reath, Richmond, not Ingleby Cross.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We ended up staying in Rosemont Abbey, I think.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Claybank Top.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we're 15 days.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You start to to to lose all of the memories of all of the different places you stayed.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, each of these places has its own historic charm, and they're all very small towns.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um the largest town was Richmond, which um actually has uh an old castle in it, um, pretty beat down, but it's it's still there.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's lovely to walk through.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but most of these are very, very small um with a pub, um, a couple of hotels, and in some cases, uh not even that much.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um so very rural, remote.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the the trail um takes you, takes you through all these tr towns.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So how does it work through?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm obviously I'm gonna tie in some type of alerting and communication to this.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have self-service throughout this whole thing?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we downloaded an app.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had a couple of different ways to do this.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had an app from the company that moved our luggage from hotel to hotel.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing you should know is that we did not do wild camping.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Some people carried backpacks and went across with all of their gear on their backs.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: We just carried our food, our medical kit, our rain gear, lots of water, sunscreen, um, and then our phones, an extra power supply because most places you could, you did have cell service.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we had an app from our um our the company that booked all of our hotels for us.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can also download the um the map from England, which gives you all of the coordinates.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we also had paper maps, and there's lots of books that also show you how to do the trail.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: But as I will show you in some pictures, the trail is pretty well marked, especially now that it's national.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's a really good thing.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So here are the first pictures are of us standing at the water in St.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: B's, and there is a big uh uh plaque that says it's the start of Coast to Coast Walk.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you go on um social media, especially Facebook, there are groups where people every day are putting up pictures of themselves um starting the coast to coast walk.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is the tradition is you dip your toes in the water in one side of the country, and then you also pick up a pebble and you carry that pebble with you across England and you throw it into the North Sea when you get there.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So um, this was me and my husband um as we were preparing the walk on a Friday.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the next day we set off from St.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: B's to Enerdale Bridge.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um the on the top right, you see a picture of a post with three arrows, directional arrows.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the kind of signage that we'd had at most intersections, where it would tell you go this direction for coast to coast, go this direction for um uh one of the other kinds of trails.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It tells you who can use it, if it's bikes, horses, pedestrians.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then on the bottom right, you can see just a single post.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you see on the top post, there's a little picture of an acorn.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And on the post on the bottom, that acorn is then present again, and it would say C2C, um, just the letters, C, the letter C, the number two, the letter C, um, to keep people informed that that is the coast-to-coast path that they were looking for.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um interestingly, in the UK, um the public has the right of way to walk through most privately owned land.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were walking primarily on public bridalways, which meant just little footpaths through people's um pastures.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So on our first day, we started to meet some of the local animals.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's lambing season.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we spent a lot of time walking through sheep pastures with lots of baby lambs.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I have some pictures of a couple other animals that we saw along the way.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Also, um, we went through a lot of gates and styles and learned that there's all kinds of ways to get over through and around these different gates that keep um the sheep separated.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And also, the one other thing I wanted to point out in this picture is you see the rock wall in the top right.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those rock walls are all over England.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Very few barbed wire fences, wooden post fences.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: They were all these rock walls that would go way up the hillside and separate um the different uh pastures from from each other, which was, if you think about the amount of effort that went into creating those dry walk rock walls, just it's really astounding to think of how much time must have gone into that so many centuries ago.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the first day was about 14 miles.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: We did have a warm-up walk on the day that we arrived in St.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: B's because the um the pathway, the original pathway, they had had a landslide.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the diversion took you out to the initial lighthouse, but you couldn't follow the cliff walk.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You had to go um a different pathway.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, in order to go out to the lighthouse on the on the cliff, we we did that 10-mile walk on Friday as a as a little warm-up.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the beginning on Saturday, we went um 14 miles to Enerdale Bridge.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So um Enerdale Bridge uh was uh a long lake that we walked around, and then we ended up at this uh youth hostel, which was at the end of the lake.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's just this really nice uh uh hostel, is it just it's a it's a building where people can um on the honor system pay for snacks and water and and you can stay at the hostel.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it has very limited bedding, uh limited places for people to stay.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but people would frequently wild camp nearby so they could use uh the bathroom and get all their gear packed up to start on this pretty steep ascent on on the next picture, um, where this was not the steepest, but it was it was steep because the goal was to go from the bottom of the valley where the lake was up over the top of this first mountain in the lake district.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So on that first day we did 14 miles.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, just a little stretch of the lakes.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little stretch, yeah.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then the next day was a little shorter, but again, another uphill walk.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you here you can see that um these flagstones that are going up the side of the mountain or the hillside.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and with the because it was named a national trail, they invested a lot of time and energy using helicopters to fly in these flagstones in these very remote places, which makes it incredibly simple to follow the path.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even need wayfinding to do that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: They also brought in big stepping stones to help make these um uphill paths a lot easier to get over.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because as you can see on the right hand side, the picture of me.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: This was the one where we were literally doing, we were on our hands and knees climbing up because we somehow got off the path and we had to still get up the hill.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we were going through muddy sections and kind of crawling.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the addition of the rock steps really helps.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so this was another nine miles.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then the famous thing about Grassmere, we were told that we had to go to the gingerbread house in Grassmere because for generations, um, this one family has um made gingerbread.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ever in Grassmere, um, go and get some gingerbread, and it's very different from ginger snaps or a gingerbread cake.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a gingerbread bar with like a crushed cookie-ish kind of topping on it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's very good, but there were very long lines.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when we were in the lake district, it was they were having a heat wave.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not as bad as they are currently at the beginning of July having a heat wave, but it was it was hot.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we had finished our nine miles that day and then stood in line waiting for hot gingerbread, and it was that was a little challenging.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um the next day we did just eight miles to Glen Ridding.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was probably one of my more favorite days, even though we again went up over the hill um and came down.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we did get to sit along a lake because we got we went out so early that day because of the heat.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: We sat along a lake um called Oldswater and um we had beer and it was lovely.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the um the royal air team practices their flight formations over the top of Oldswater Lake, and so we sat for about an hour or so and just watched all these very fast F-16 uh list them out.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: What are they?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know all of them.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they were very, very loud, very fast, and they would come swooping down the lake and then make a turn, you know, going around the mountain, and you could hear them coming, and they always came in pairs.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd hear this big loud rushing sound, and then the second one would come up right behind them.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this was um, you know, there were a lot of people at the lake that day because it was a bank holiday.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so all these people were they were stopping their paddle boarding to to look up and watch as the planes came rushing through.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was that was very that was a very cool thing to get to watch that day.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um so a lot of our colleagues stayed at Patterdale, which was just right next door to Glen Ridding, a few miles.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh I say colleagues because the way that people start the trail, if you're if you're all starting at the same place at about the same time of day, you end up seeing those people day after day after day, and you form some trail relationships, which is kind of fun.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we got to know several groups of people who were traveling at the same pace as we were as we walked from place to place and usually uh really cheering each other on when we got to the top of the big climbs because they were they were tough to do.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that second picture where there is um a lot of stones.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at the top.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can see, but um the just little tiny me at the top, um making my way up, and my husband was taking pictures like he always does.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um the next day, uh you had the option of going up over the highest mountain on the trail, which is called Kids Deep, or taking the Oldswater steamer.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we chose to save our legs, and we took the Oldswater steamer and we went down the lake.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So now we can say that we traveled by plane to Europe, train from London to St.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: B's, um, taxi in London, so automobile, and by boat.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we were getting it all in.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was no biking and there was no horseback riding, but we we did most of it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we went up the lake and we got off halfway and then we walked along the rest of the lake, and then we turned and started going towards Shap.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and Shap is known because there's an old abbey that's there that was um decommissioned in um uh 1500s under one of the King Hendries who said um he did not want the Catholic Church practicing in England, England anymore.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the remains of that particular abbey that you could walk through.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was a really beautiful old building.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is just one of the towers, it was still left.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you can see us um walking down between again those stone walls and um just this walking path um in in one of the pictures.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I'm climbing over one of the kinds of styles um to show you that not only did we go through gates, but we also went over um walls as we were making our way across the um across the country.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a that was a nice day.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of riding.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: We still ended up doing 16 miles.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was long, um, but saw lots of sheep that day and got to ride on a boat.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um the next day we shaped to T Bay, another 12 miles, another kind of a style, how you get over the over the wall.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: This one has these steps that are built into the wall, and we had to show you a baby lamb.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Another, yeah.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: You you got sheep everywhere.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sheep everywhere.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um I have pictures from every single day, but I don't I don't I don't know if it's valuable to keep going through every single day.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe if you have questions you can you can Yeah, I would say like I mean I want to see some of these and I wanna I like I said I do have questions uh about I think alerting and communication with this if you're fine with it because you were you were a tourist and a traveler in another country, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we have those here.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um in fact our tourism is is pretty substantial in the United States and I as you're showing me these pictures and talking about your experiences, it makes me think about everybody who comes here and you know it's not first on their mind probably going like wow I need to get somewhere where I can sign up for an opt-in system to hear all these alerts that are happening.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um because you're I mean, you were in England for this experience and it looks amazing.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um but like did did you go through the thought process when you were there saying how is someone gonna communicate with me?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or was it was it was it even presented to you or was it not a focus at all?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um we had access to apps that gave us information about the weather, which was our biggest concern.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um the innkeepers uh were all connected to one another.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so they knew what was happening up and down the trail um and knew each other and um shared with us information if it was important, like the first innkeeper that we saw in St.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: B's.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: She gave us the whole route to get out to Lighthouse and she drew us a map.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: In comparison with the old trail, I mean this is significantly improved so that you don't get lost in the moors.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can see in this picture on the left, uh, you know, it was just written on a plastic lid and tacked to a post.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way the side that this are these are the old posts before they it became a national trailer.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they laid down the flagstone and put up these really beautiful posts that are all like the engraved with an acorn.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was it was pretty rough for people who used to have to navigate with a compass and a map.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's much simpler.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: We were really the most concerned about rain when we were preparing.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't think about the potential for a heat wave in the middle of May.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as we were getting ready to leave to go over to England, people were sharing their pictures from their experience on the trail, and people were walking in rain for a week straight, and their boots were just completely soggy and their feet were a mess.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we were concerned that we were going to experience that, and um, you know, trying to think of all the things we could do with like waterproof socks or extra changes of clothing in our backpacks, and um, we only had three days of significant rain, but the heat was pretty, pretty oppressive, and people who are out there right now are really struggling with the heat, also.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that the information that we were able to get was useful to us.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure there was anything else that we would have looked for.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: There was one day when we were trying to outrun a pretty significant thunderstorm.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: We did not outrun it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: We got caught in it, but there was no place to go to shelter from the thunderstorm.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We were out in the middle of public bridleways, fields walking with the sheep.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was no place to hide from this lightning that we could see um to the west of us.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, and you knew that there were going to be storms in the afternoon, but there was because there was such a distance between these towns, there was no place to go and stay and wait out the storm.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: You, if you were out walking, you just had to keep going.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that was probably the day where I felt like it was the most dangerous.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we didn't have there was no place to go to to get out of it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um we did have another day where we were climbing over a series of five different um peaks.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And on the third peak, the winds were so blowing so hard, and there was so much cloud cover over the next peak that as we were watching people climbing hand over fist again because the winds were so hard you had to practically crawl up.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: We decided that day that we needed to to find another route to go down.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so but uh and in that case, there was some signage that led us in a different route, but we were really grateful to have the app and other m maps that we could read to help us to figure out how to get down off of the mountain so that we weren't gonna get blown off of the mountain.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, then I'm just thinking, like, A, this is an amazing journey that you went through.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so obviously I think you'd do it again, or would you not do this one again?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, or just say, like, we did it and it was amazing, and now I want to do something else.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I would do it again.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because it was really beautiful.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot of time to train and to get ready for it.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like an incredible sense of accomplishment at the end.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: But what what I really loved was in the first two-thirds of our time out on the trail, I wasn't focused on the destination and on trying to achieve something every day.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was just present.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was just experiencing, I was in the now.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that makes sense.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that one of one of the things that as an academic, as a professional, as somebody who's incredibly competitive, something that I struggle with is feeling like I have to accomplish something all the time.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And being out on the trail, and the only thing you have to do is get up in the morning, pack your rain clothes and your uh your lunch, and just walk.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: There was just a real sense of there was no pressure.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: There was just this beauty surrounding us, these uh really amazing sights to take in.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was a it was a relieving it was truly a vacation.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it seems weird to walk 200 miles and it's a vacation.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like there were no text messages, there were no emails, there was no um papers to be reading or writing.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was purely just focused on being present for 15 days um in these remote areas that were just really, really beautiful.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: So um I loved it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was great.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the picture that I just put up is um uh we got to see Highland cows, and they've got to be one of my favorite animals on the trail.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: There weren't very many, um, but they're they're just I think they're really cute.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: But they're the ones with the really big horns and the long hair that covers their faces.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: They look like uh the little shaggy.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's also a picture of me and my husband.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was cold when we were walking um across the top of this moor.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said I I have not taken a trip like that.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that does sound parts of it sound really fun.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Parts of it sound like a lot of work.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm glad you got to accomplish it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: It I I appreciated all the people who shared with me on LinkedIn what their big gnarly goal was for the year.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this was mine.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um it really was big and pretty gnarly.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I was grateful that I could do something like this.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and loved being able to do it with my husband, you know, hiking across together, that we were both in it.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can one of the things we we said to each other and to others that we walked with was you can go fast alone, you can go farther with someone else.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really true on those days where it just felt really long, having somebody else alongside made all the difference in the world.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that that's also a metaphor for the work that we do in this emergency management space is you want to move fast, sure.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just be the person who goes in and does it on your own.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if you wanna, if you're in it for the long haul, like having a partner to get through is really important um and a truly valuable part of the experience.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: That is.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I and again, folks, this is definitely not a standard episode.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's fine.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um this I mean, we are real people and we're doing real things.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one that I think I've wanted to hear about because and again, because my friend got to do it, and that's what's super fun about it.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I as you go through it again, my mind goes to alerting, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um because sometimes it's hard to turn this mindset off, which you know.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think of FIFA's going on, we have other large sporting events, we have all these places where people are coming and are experiencing heat waves or experiencing a lot of things that that are tough.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm just thinking to myself, you went to a place where all the signs were in English, um, queen Queen's English, right?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or is that what it I know I'm gonna get corrected.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's so it made it a lot easier.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine going and I guess I've been to other countries where it's Spanish, but I I can I can read Spanish, I can speak Spanish.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I imagine what would have been like coming or going to a place where you are it's more difficult to see all this stuff because I imagine that helped you feel secure and prepared because you could read.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: You you could communicate really well.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I we've we've talked very briefly about going and doing a long walk through in other countries and thinking about some of the barriers that come along with being in a rural area in another country where you don't speak the language and it's possible that they're not gonna speak the language too.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: We were in, you know, when I've been in highly populated parts of other countries, there's English speakers, which um makes it much easier for us.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: But in those more rural areas, you know, you you just hope.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I could just yeah, it it thinking about people who are visiting here today for FIFA, um, they uh certainly are gonna be reliant on their apps to translate for them for better or worse.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and hope that there is information presented in languages that they can read.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I do have one other funny story related to FIFA.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, go for it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so after we finished our walk, we took a train um down to to York and then up to Edinburgh.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Edinburgh is Scotland, and um spent a few days in Scotland wandering around, which was a lovely place.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we even had Haggis, which I was surprised is not so bad.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh when we were leaving, we went to the airport in Edinburgh, and that was on a Thursday.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And on Saturday, Scotland played their tournament, their first game in Boston.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so the airport at 9 a.m.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: on Saturday was completely filled with the Tartan army um preparing to fly across the pond into Boston to watch the game.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can just imagine all these men in kilts at 9 a.m.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: on their third pint.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it was like in the airport in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was great.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the flight that we were supposed to take did get canceled, so we ended up taking a six-hour train down to London so we could get out through London.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because otherwise we would have been in Edinburgh for a couple more days.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, there are worse places to get stuck, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: There, yes.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is just beautiful places that we got to visit, just incredibly fortunate.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm grateful to you for for all the people, right?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are there are people out there that are just kind and that help.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I know as I've traveled, I've I've met some pretty amazing people that go out of their way just to help you feel welcomed.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm I'm hoping and I'm sure you had similar experiences with people just, you know, really appreciating you taking this time and this journey.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: So well, you know, on the trail, I've I've had a great companionship with a lot of people, which was was really wonderful um in terms of you know meeting kind people along the way.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I've also really appreciated people's interest in this in this big walk.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so thanks to anybody who's asked me about it, and I'm happy to share more stories um because there's so much that we experienced in those 15 days.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if you if you want to learn about how you can prepare for your own big walk, I've got a whole training plan now, a whole list of things that I would suggest that you bring with you to make it easier.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, I think my my biggest tip would be absolutely work with a planning company so that they can get all of your lodging booked and they move your your luggage for you so that you can you can arrive at an inn and actually get a shower every day.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because the people who are wild camping, I just cannot imagine hiking over those big peaks and then having to lay down on the ground then that night and get up the next morning and do it again.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, hats off to you if that's the way you like to travel.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I I preferred a mattress at night.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I yeah, no, I I think I would be in that same boat.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: Doing it for a day or two, cool.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: But 15 days across the entire island, that's pretty amazing.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty amazing.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I will say too, if if even our our tiny little comments have made you think, okay, we have people in our jurisdiction that are taking these amazing trips that are here in the United States doing amazing things.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like there are so many uh cool touristy things um within our own country that I know I enjoy doing.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I do interact in communities that I have no um knowledge of their customs for emergencies, what their plans are, or anything else.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we've actually had guests on before who who have talked about this.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'd invite you to take a listen to some previous guests who talk about tourism and talk about how they're trying to essentially market to people who are coming in, whether it's through QR codes or other invitations, for them to sign up for local alerts so they can stay aware.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I mean we want tourism, like we want people to be able to come and enjoy.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not just talking about people from overseas, but even people exploring their own state.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as you do that and as people come into your community, we want them to be safe and for you to have a way to help them in a time of need.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so, Jeanette, I think what we have to do from now on is just start taking pretty amazing trips, right?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just to go see how are they interacting with me, right?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And learning about their alerting systems, yeah, yeah.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that kind of research.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if anybody has access, if you're like, man, we run a tour company, I would love for you to reach out to us and we will do a fun little assessment and see how it goes.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um always open to that type of stuff.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: But but thank you for sharing today.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, thanks for asking, and thanks for everybody who's who's listening to this short and unusual episode.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, you know, I'm reach out if you've got questions, happy to share.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll end with, I think, just the basic stuff that we normally do as say, folks, we are two very real and normal people that are working really hard to try to make sure that we have all of the most recent, um, advanced and very practical answers to these questions that we all have when it comes to helping to maintain safety and readiness within our communities.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be through communication, like we've talked about, with uh emergency alerts and warnings.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: It can also be with more of the internal things of preparation you do within your own agency.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be with something we've talked about a lot here, are developing templates ahead of time for different hazards that you can expect so that you're ready.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: I actually just had a call today um with someone who was talking to me about um templates, and it's someone we've worked with before, and they said, Look, hey, we we had an incident that happened, we did activate an iPaused message, and the template got us like 98% there.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, That's amazing.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I always say shoot for 80%, and then you can fill in the little gaps, but they said it was about 98%, and so having templates is a real um feather in your cap.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it really can help because uh this was they had a trained derailment, and so things were moving quite quickly, and so for them to have that information, um, it was it was wonderful.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: So they were calling just to say thank you to that.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and to that end, we have things like the boot camp.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's one happening this month in July, if you're listening.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is July of 2026, but they will happen throughout the year, and it's that one-on-one time where you can go and actually create those templates.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have an opportunity to look at your um policies, procedures, and talk about them in a very real way, um, respectful.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, let's be honest.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I look at policies all the time, and there are very few that I'm like, oh wow, perfect, you're good to go.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, other times it's a lot of best effort or a lot of handshake deals, or I'll be told, no, we're good because I talk to so-and-so, and they're gonna help us out.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Or we don't have it written down, but someone will help.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we can do better, and when push comes to shove, we need to be a little bit more prepared than that.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: So these are all things that we can do.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know, Jeanette, if you have any other final thoughts before we sign off.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: I do not.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: This has just been a fun conversation, and I'm glad that uh you know we can always link things in our personal lives back to our experiences of alerts and warnings.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate that my story got told today, and I'm looking forward to hearing more stories from our colleagues in the future.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day, folks.