One Drink Book Club | A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another edition of the One Drink Book Club. Today we're going to be discussing A Walk in the Woods, a humorous and insightful travel memoir written by Bill Bryson. The book chronicles Bryson's attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail, a 2200-mile long trail

[00:00:22] that stretches from Georgia to Maine along with his friend Stephen Katz. My special guest tonight is Nick Bowers, my son who just finished through hiking the Appalachian Trail with his girlfriend Anna Murphy just last week. Thanks Nick for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

[00:00:40] First off, congratulations on finishing the trail. I mean that is a really big accomplishment, 2200 miles. That's amazing. Yeah, thank you and also thank you for picking us up and being a part of it along the way. Really appreciate it. Our pleasure.

[00:00:58] So as you know, you've listened to a few episodes of the One Drink Book Club and the Bill Bryson book talks about the trail, talks about his attempts to hike on the trail. What cocktail did you make tonight inspired by the book and the trail itself?

[00:01:15] So this is a proprietary cocktail, one that Hannah and I thought of while we were on the trail when we were thinking about what things we might miss from normal life. As we're walking, especially up in New Hampshire and Maine, we started smelling all of the fir

[00:01:34] trees and wanted to make a cocktail that sort of captured the essence of all of the trees in the forest. So I call this the North Woods. Bourbon, peated scotch, maple syrup, angostura bitters and a little bit of fir bitters. So it gives it that woodsy flavor.

[00:01:55] And then a little lemon peel here. It's kind of like an old fashioned, but I call it the North Woods. So that's the cocktail for tonight. Nice. I think I am very impressed that you invented a cocktail for it.

[00:02:07] My cocktail tonight is, I just went with a standard Moscow mule because you guys were basically pack mules for 2,200 miles. And if you don't know a Moscow mule is a pretty simple refreshing drink. It has two ounces of vodka in it, ginger beer and lime juice.

[00:02:26] And you serve it traditionally in a copper cup. It's a nice summery drink, but it is very refreshing as well. I'm a big fan of Moscow mules. Absolutely. Very tasty. And it's kind of funny actually.

[00:02:40] As you'll see in the book, the two Bryson and Katz try very hard to abstain from alcohol. So it can be a little challenging to find a book inspired drink considering that. Very true. Very true. It's not like you were going to pick what they were drinking. Yeah.

[00:02:57] So I assume that you read this book prior to actually doing the trail. Correct. Yeah. Partially just because people would ask me, you know, you're hiking the trail. Have you read A Walk in the Woods? And, you know, I didn't want to have to say no. I haven't.

[00:03:11] So that was partially the inspiration and then also my own interest. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I read it when you kind of said that you were going to want to do this.

[00:03:21] I thought, well, I had the same thing when I told people, Nick's going to be hiking the trail. They said, well, have you read A Walk in the Woods? So I used it as kind of my first primer as to what kind of things you would be tackling.

[00:03:33] And I really enjoyed the book. I don't know about you. What did you think just from an entertainment standpoint? Oh, I loved it. I think it was super funny, super informative, very interesting and fun read. It did not feel at all laborious. No, Bryson's a really funny writer.

[00:03:51] And I think the addition of his friends, cats, who is kind of this overweight, middle age kind of disaster of a person trying to hike the trail with literally no experience, no prep work, no hiking prowess or camping prowess made for some funny stories.

[00:04:08] But the biggest thing I thought was interesting to me was kind of the history of the trail. I thought that stuff was really fascinating because the trail is not that old and, you know, it's changed a lot through the years. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:04:21] And that was one of my favorite parts as well. The actual portion that he hiked ended up not being the entire trail. So spoiler alert. But he doesn't make it. Yeah. You know, he kind of makes up for it in terms of talking about the

[00:04:37] history of the entire trail all the way from Georgia to Maine. He talks about, you know, the plant and animal life along the way, the conception and then the execution of blazing the trail. All of its iterations throughout his history, which started in 1937.

[00:04:56] The first through hike was done in 1948, which he mentioned. So yeah, that was 11 years after it was created. But yeah, I thought that that portion of the book, which is a significant portion, was well worth reading and a very interesting part.

[00:05:11] Did it give you a good picture of what the trail was kind of like, even though clearly he didn't he didn't do nearly the whole thing? I mean, he did about 200 miles and then some kind of specialized hikes after that.

[00:05:24] But when you started, you say, OK, this was he wasn't far off. He clearly took some time with it. Yeah, I honestly, you know, I've gone back and forth at the beginning. Having read this book, but not having hiked the trail, I kind of thought,

[00:05:39] you know, these stories are kind of bogus like, you know, he's way over the top. And then as I start hiking, I start meeting these people, you know, people that might be wildly unprepared or kind of like know it all or, you know, just funny people in general.

[00:05:55] I start to think, wow, actually, this is a somewhat accurate portrait of the trail. And then, yeah, learning about the history was a great primer as well. Clearly, Bryson's a funny guy and he had kind of a lot of little funny stories interjected in it.

[00:06:12] You know, clearly cats added some humor to it just because he was kind of this bumbling disaster on the trail. But what were some of the funny moments that you and Hannah came across on the trail? Did you was there anything memorable that where you just thought,

[00:06:27] oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening? Yeah, I mean, and you know, I guess talking to my father about this, he might not be the most proud. But there was a funny part of the book where Bryson and cats are hitching

[00:06:43] a ride into the small town of Hiawasi, Georgia, which is pretty much the first major town you hit along the trail. And as they're trying to hitchhike, they finally get a car to come over. And it turns out to be this young couple and clearly they've been drinking.

[00:07:00] They said they're going to get married tomorrow. It's this whole fiasco and they're trying not to get killed as, you know, the driver is clearly impaired and serving all over the place. And, you know, Hannah and I had kind of a similar experience

[00:07:16] up in Connecticut where we wanted to get a ride to a pharmacy because I had gotten some new medication and a guy kind of swerves off the road, he says, where are you going? We say, you know, whatever town it was up the road and he responds with,

[00:07:33] I don't know where that is. And we're like, well, OK, well, where are you going? He says, I don't know. And we're like, all right. And we see in his front seat, he's got a bunch of open beer cans.

[00:07:44] He's, you know, hitting his weed pen just a total mess. And we're like, oh, God, what have we gotten ourselves into? So he takes us at this point, we're kind of locked in there. And, you know, he's trying to show me a picture on his phone.

[00:07:58] He's, you know, trying to avoid the cops that are in the town we're in. And we're like, OK, can we please get out at this point? And eventually we get out and, you know, get to the CBS pharmacy.

[00:08:09] But it's just crazy stuff like that that, you know, actually happens on the trail. You know, the stories and walking the woods aren't I believe them, you know, they're not they don't sound exaggerated. That kind of brings up a question. I mean, what were the kind of people?

[00:08:25] Was there any kind of stereotypical hiker that you came across? The people who were through hiking the trail. Did the people you meet kind of surprise you or were they from all different kinds of walks of life?

[00:08:36] I mean, what was kind of the typical hiker that you came across? Yeah, I honestly don't think there there was a typical hiker. I had this image going into it where everyone would be some, you know, young, fit, kind of crunchy person with a lot of hiking experience,

[00:08:55] you know, very technical gear. And that really wasn't the case. And I honestly should have paid more attention to a walk in the woods. You know, cats and Bryson are clearly not your stereotypical hikers. They're older, out of shape, you know, one's a covered alcoholic.

[00:09:13] All of these things that don't add up to a very successful hiker. And, you know, I saw all of that on the trail. I saw people who were recovered addicts. I saw people who were in their 80s hiking the trail, some even through hikers.

[00:09:27] I saw young people right outside of high school. People like me and Hannah that are recently graduated college. There's army veterans. There's hippies. There's homeless people. There's really all walks of life. And I don't think there is a unifying stereotype of a through hiker.

[00:09:48] If I were to say what's the largest demographic, it was probably around millennials, so 30s, 40s with some hiking experience. But again, we met people from literally all walks of life. And it's hard to say whether there's a stereotype. Interesting.

[00:10:06] One of the characters in a walk in the woods who was memorable was Mary Ellen, who was kind of this annoying younger woman. She was a know it all and she kind of glommed on to them and hiked with them

[00:10:20] for several days and was really driving them crazy. Did you have any Mary Ellen's that came up? Talk a little bit about the people you've met that you actually got to know on the trail. Yeah. So I don't know if there's anyone exactly like Mary Ellen.

[00:10:33] She seemed to be this know it all, but didn't really necessarily have the experience to back it up and constantly providing unsolicited advice. Just kind of an annoying presence. We definitely got some of that. There are some people that would say either to us or to other hikers.

[00:10:51] You know, you'll never make a tick a toad in with insert piece of gear. We had a friend. His name was Smokemaster. We met him very late in the trail and he carried this stupid little tea kettle with him.

[00:11:04] And at the end it was purely sentimental value, but he told us someone told him early on in the trail that you'll never make a tick a toad and with this little tea kettle. And so just despite them, he brought it all the way and he

[00:11:20] summited right after us. And then there's, you know, a few other people that would say, you know, this is not how you cross a river. You have to do it this way or that mileage early on is way too much

[00:11:33] or you're not going to make it if you're doing this few miles. So there was some advice that was appreciated, some that was a little overstepping, mostly the people though that we met were justified in their advice given.

[00:11:48] So Mary Ellen was an extreme example of maybe unsolicited advice that didn't have a lot of merit. For the most part, we didn't meet that many people like that. Luckily. One of the things that I thought was funny, we picked you up at the

[00:12:06] at the trailhead for Mount Cotaddon and you came down with several people that you've been hiking with and that you knew for a while. And as you and Hannah came closer to the crowd, we all said, hey,

[00:12:19] Nick and Hannah and your friends all looked at you like, oh wait, is that your real name? Is your name Nick? And is your name Hannah? Which I thought was really funny. So talk a little bit about trail names on the trail.

[00:12:32] Yeah, trail names are a big tradition on the trail. Usually within the first 100 or so miles people will get a name. It pretty much is always given to them. You know, if you make it up yourself, it kind of loses its magic. But mostly it's given to you.

[00:12:50] Sometimes it's something you do. Sometimes it's, you know, just something you say. My trail name was Gecko and it was given by a friend who thought I was looking at the geckos and all the streams. They were little salamanders, but it was whatever. And yeah, exactly.

[00:13:11] And Hannah's trail name was S'mores because she brought a bunch of S'mores to some of the first shelters. People appreciated that started calling her S'mores. Like, hey, S'mores, you know, you bring any marshmallows today. So that stuck.

[00:13:27] So both of our names were given pretty early on, I'd say within the first 200 miles and they just kind of stick. And we've met people with some pretty crazy trail names. You know, such as such. Yeah. Squirt, mud bag, mountain goat, feral goat, learning curve,

[00:13:47] a smoke master, Jimmy Dean. You know, the list goes on and each name is more outrageous than the next. There's a girl named Shitwater. So yeah, you never know what you want. Yeah, exactly. And actually the walk in the woods, I don't think covers that enough.

[00:14:07] I think maybe it mentions it, but neither Katz nor Bryson got trail names. And so they kind of missed out on that fun tradition. I think you're right. Katz and Bryson talks about they talk about their tent

[00:14:21] and sleeping arrangements and that they have these shelters along the way. But where did you end up sleeping most night? How did that work? Yeah, Hannah and I mostly just slept in our tent the entire time. They are our shelters along the way.

[00:14:36] I think on average there are about every eight to 10 miles. So if you need to stay in a shelter, let's say it's raining or you don't want to set up your tent, then it's a good place to sleep.

[00:14:48] But to be honest, sometimes I got a little crowded or sometimes there was mice crawling on you in the shelters and you kind of just wanted your own personal space. And yeah, Hannah and I definitely preferred the tent.

[00:15:02] In the walk in the woods, I think Bryson and Katz, they were maybe about 50, 50. Sometimes they would sleep in the shelters, sometimes in the tent. But we were definitely tent people on the trail. And along the trail, like how often did you come across a town

[00:15:18] and how often did you actually have cell phone service? You know, one of the things in the book, you know, they had they went through the Smoky Mountains. They had some periods where they felt pretty remote.

[00:15:28] And then at the end, they did try to do a little bit of the 100 mile wilderness, how out of touch with civilization were you? And how often did you come across towns and and had an ability to shower or restock on food and things like that?

[00:15:45] We probably went on average around four days between towns or, you know, restocks at least. We wouldn't always stay in the town, but sometimes just get a restock and then continue to hike. And they talk about that a little bit.

[00:16:02] The first restock you get to on the trail is called Neals Gap. And they called it something else in the book, the shop. So I'd say about four or five days between town slash restock, which made it pretty manageable.

[00:16:17] You only have to carry a certain amount of food. And the trail ended up not feeling quite as remote as I thought. We ended up getting cell service about at least once a day. I think the more remote sections were the Smoky Mountains

[00:16:33] and then up in Maine, it was very remote. But throughout the trail, you know, in Pennsylvania and Virginia, you usually got service at least once a day. And I didn't feel too disconnected from the outside world. You did this several decades after Bill Bryson did.

[00:16:52] And so I think some of the traditions of the trail have changed or have developed just over time. And he also didn't do the whole length of the trail. What were some of the things that I know that the halfway point

[00:17:05] there was an ice cream eating contest, for example. But what were some of the highlights points along the way that were memorable? So yeah, again, I mean, he did it in 96 and we just finished up. It's 2023.

[00:17:18] And I think he mentioned in the book that only a couple hundred people would even attempt the trail back in the mid 90s. Whereas now you get a couple thousand, maybe three or four thousand people attempting. So the landscape has changed a lot.

[00:17:33] And, you know, there's more people, which means more traditions, more interactions on a day to day basis, which I think is nice. And then we had covered the trail names, which they didn't really use. But the halfway ice cream challenge, they called the half gallon challenge

[00:17:54] at the exact half point, which is in Pine Grove, Furnace, Pennsylvania. The challenge is to eat a half gallon of ice cream as fast as you can to visualize that it's one of those big tubs of ice cream.

[00:18:08] It's three pints and then an extra pint on the side. So some people choose to eat the pint first and then the big tub or the reverse. You know, there's different strategies, but that's a pretty fun tradition.

[00:18:22] We actually saw the record being broken for the fastest known time. I think the previous time was around five and a half minutes. But one of our buddies were completed it in about four and a half minutes. So he knocked off an entire minute.

[00:18:37] And one of his strategies was to vigorously stir the ice cream and get all the air bubbles out and then just absolutely devouring it. And it was kind of like watching a plane crash. We couldn't look away. It honestly distracted me from my own ice cream eating.

[00:18:57] I did it in about 17 minutes. Hannah did it about 30 minutes. And that was a fun tradition. There was also the tradition of Naked Hiker Day. I don't know if I've told you about Naked Hiker. No, I don't think I have heard about this.

[00:19:16] Yeah. So the summer solstice, I think June 21st is Naked Hiker Day. And this year we were in Shenandoah National Park, which unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, is pretty high traffic area. So it's a little risky to be out there.

[00:19:38] Yeah, neither Hannah and I, you know, fully embraced the challenge. I think I stripped down to my underwear, but we did know some guys that did the full thing and was a sight to see a dirty. Hiker. Yeah, exactly. Some some guys went with just a loincloth.

[00:19:59] They got creative with it. That day was interesting, though, because it was probably the coldest day we'd had in about a month. And it was drizzling the entire day. So not ideal weather for that challenge. So yeah, those are some of the fun traditions that hikers do.

[00:20:20] Did you guys ever think about quitting? I mean, was there a point where you were either cold or tired? Or I mean, I'm sure you were cold and tired, but did it ever was it ever a discussion like, Hey, do we want to finish this?

[00:20:33] To be honest, I don't think either of us ever seriously considered quitting. I think there are times that we were super miserable for Hannah. At least she talked about, you know, how cold the smokies were. We got a little bit of snow.

[00:20:50] We actually started on April 2nd, which ended up being good. We avoided a lot of the coldest weather in the book. A walk in the woods. I think they started early March and they talk about getting snow and waking up to frozen water bottles.

[00:21:07] And, you know, we never had any of that, which is really nice. There were nights that got down into the 20s, but nothing as bad as what cats and Bryson experienced. Maybe that's kind of why they decided to bow out early.

[00:21:20] We did get a lot of heat, though, because of when we started. So I think it was about Pennsylvania and New York. The sun was shining bright and it was blisteringly hot in the 90s. We're sweating the entire day and the mosquitoes are coming at us.

[00:21:38] And so those those days could get kind of miserable. But now I don't think we ever seriously considered quitting. You know, honestly, hiking with a partner made it so that, you know, you're constantly encouraging each other.

[00:21:51] And if one person starts to feel bad, you know, the other person can give a little bit more energy, which is nice. Didn't necessarily work out for cats and Bryson, but worked out for us.

[00:22:02] Did you run across many other couples or were you kind of a rare thing on the on the trail? There are a few other couples, to be honest. We saw a lot more early on. So I don't know what that says about hiking as a couple.

[00:22:16] People usually said to us, you know, either you're going to break up or get married after this. It's a lot of time to spend with one person, especially 24 seven. But we got through this. We don't hate each other now.

[00:22:30] But yeah, I think there were probably about five other couples that we would consistently see along the way. So it wasn't rare, but it wasn't super common either. Sure. What was the toughest from a technical hiking standpoint? What parts of the trail were the were the roughest?

[00:22:49] I think by far the White Mountains in New Hampshire. And Bryson talks a little bit about this, Mount Washington and Lafayette, Franconia Ridge, all that stuff. It is pretty demanding. I mean, I think we're averaging about 15 to 17 miles a day leading up

[00:23:09] to the Whites. So it kind of starts at Mount Musaloc, which is kind of taken care of by the Dartmouth Outing Club. And then you hike farther up north and get to Mount Washington, Mount Madison, the presidential range, all that stuff.

[00:23:24] And our average ended up dropping down to around 10 or 12 miles a day. It was super demanding and going straight up and then going straight back down, climbing over rocks. Sometimes you'd have to like toss your hiking poles over and then climb up

[00:23:42] or do the opposite on the way down. And that was pretty demanding, kind of hard on the knees, especially when it got slippery with rain. So I think that was probably the most technically challenging terrain. And honestly, it didn't stop until mid-Main.

[00:23:58] So New Hampshire and Maine were pretty challenging portions. Now, which part did you think was the prettiest? The same sections, to be honest. OK, yeah. Made in New Hampshire, I think there's a long section in the middle that Bryson and Katz never really threw hiked, I guess.

[00:24:18] You know, he went on some smaller hikes throughout Pennsylvania and New York and Massachusetts and stuff like that. But there is a long section in the middle there where you know, the terrain is pretty level. Views are nice, but not spectacular.

[00:24:34] It can just get a little bit routine, I guess. But then you hit the mountains up in Vermont and New Hampshire and Maine. And I think that's by far the most gorgeous part of trail. It's pretty breathtaking up there. There's tall mountains. The views are vast.

[00:24:50] You get into these lovely spruce and fir forests and also the alpine zones. So it's completely treeless. You get 360 views. And that's the part I enjoyed the most. I think me and Hannah were saying at some point, the white mountains didn't exist.

[00:25:06] I don't know if people would through hike the A to E. So it's a testament of their beauty. Was there anything, I mean, you you would send back photos of some of these meals that you would get in these small towns. They'd be kind of these diner things.

[00:25:21] And I was surprised to about the eating in general that you were not. Give me a standard day or an average day of meals. What what kind of things did you eat? And then what kind of things did you eat on the trail?

[00:25:33] And then what kind of things did you eat in town? So I think Hannah and I never quite got enough calories on trail. It is super hard to eat free packaged, freeze dried food and get enough calories.

[00:25:46] So I think a typical day towards the end when we kind of, you know, honed in what we're going to eat is you wake up and have an instant carnation breakfast essential mixed with instant coffee

[00:25:59] to kind of wake you up a little bit, maybe a peanut butter wrapped, which literally is just peanut butter on a tortilla. And then throughout the day, we'd snack on the cliff bars and nutrient bars and nature Valley bars and every other type of granola bar

[00:26:13] you can think of maybe beef jerky, maybe packaged tuna, the flavored stuff. So like Thai chili or ranch tuna. I mean, it does not sound appetizing. It really wasn't not a lot of fresh fruits and veggies along the way.

[00:26:30] We would try to pack out, you know, maybe some carrots, maybe some apples every time we restocked, then try to get some fiber and some nutrients. And then a lot of the dinners were ramen noodles, instant mashed potatoes,

[00:26:44] freeze dried foods, you know, something with a lot of calories, probably not the most nutritious. And then throughout the day, a lot of candy, a lot of like just super unhealthy stuff, Nutella, Snickers bars.

[00:26:58] I know in a walk in the woods, they mentioned eating a lot of Snickers bars. And it's completely accurate. I don't think any hiker will tell you they just become a goat. They can eat anything and will eat anything.

[00:27:11] And so whether it's raisins or granola bars or Snickers bars or any other type of candy, that's what we ate. And then in towns like in a walk in the woods, you know, it was kind of a time to pig out and finally eat something

[00:27:29] like a cooked meal that wasn't freeze dried. So we would usually order, you know, burgers. A lot of these towns didn't necessarily have like gourmet options. So a lot of it was not a lot of sushi. Yeah. So we ate barbecue and burgers and pub food,

[00:27:46] a lot of French fries and stuff like that. And we would eat a lot of it and then a lot of ice cream in the towns. So, you know, if you read a walk in the woods and you're wondering if the diet is accurate, it really is.

[00:27:59] What was the longest day you had on the trail? What in terms of I'm thinking about, you know, my own thing where I'm trying to hit 10,000 steps a day, how many steps are you doing and what was the longest day you spent?

[00:28:11] I think our longest day was in the state of Maryland. There's something on the trail called the four state challenge where you hike from Virginia through West Virginia, Harpersbury into Maryland and then all the way through Maryland, which is roughly 42 miles and to the Pennsylvania state border.

[00:28:30] And we didn't do this. So we got into Maryland and then decided, let's hike the rest of Maryland in one day. And it ended up being I think 35.7 miles. The night before we said, all right,

[00:28:45] we're going to get out of here by 6 a.m. sharp and hike until we hit the Pennsylvania state border. And we ended up reaching it around 10 30 at night. So we did, you know, a solid, I think at that time,

[00:28:59] roughly two hours of night hiking, which is never really that pleasant. You know, you got your headlamp on and you're trying not to trip over rocks, especially down steep hills. It can be a little treacherous. So what was that? I'd six to 10 30. That was what 16 hours of hiking.

[00:29:17] Yeah, 16 and a half. So that was definitely our longest day. Impressive. Really impressive. How many marathons did you do? How many days did you do over 26 miles? Was that the only one or were there others? There was one other that we did, I think just over 26.

[00:29:36] And then I'm trying to think we really didn't do that many. I think I think our upper limit in terms of, you know, hiking comfortably was around 23, 24. We I mean, we had a lot of days that were over 20, but not many over 26.

[00:29:52] Just ended up taking a lot of time. I can imagine what would be your advice to anybody who is interested in hiking the trail? What kind of advice either about preparing for it or researching it? What would what would you tell them?

[00:30:09] I would say that, you know, gear matters, but not quite as much as you might think. When Bryson and Katz did their hike in 96, the gear was a lot different and way heavier than it is now.

[00:30:21] I wouldn't be surprised if Bryson and Katz's packs before they threw out all their unnecessary gear and food in the first couple of miles. I wouldn't be surprised if those packs were 50 plus pounds. And nowadays, if your pack is over 35 pounds, people will say, OK,

[00:30:40] maybe you should take out some of your gear. So it's I think much more manageable and most of the gear that you would choose is it's not going to be too heavy. I would say the main thing is, you know, an ability to tolerate discomfort.

[00:30:55] I think that's probably the most important trait of a through hiker. There's a lot of just like tiny little unpleasant things throughout the day that end up adding up. And I think some people just say that's enough. I'm not doing this anymore.

[00:31:10] Waking up and putting on wet socks, packing up your tent in the rain, forwarding rivers, you know, stubbing your toe on roots. You know, there's little things that really end up weighing on you. You know, mosquito bites, stuff like that.

[00:31:25] And I'm making it kind of sound miserable, but it's really not. I think the tolerating minor discomforts is a is a big trait. And then also just having the goal to finish and really sticking with it. We met a lot of hikers along the way that loved hiking,

[00:31:43] loved being out there, but just didn't really care about finishing through hike, so that's completely fine. But in terms of through hiking, my advice is to really prioritize the goal of finishing the trail. It sounds, again, congratulations to both you and Hannah. That's really impressive.

[00:32:02] Something you can look back on for the rest of your life as a real interesting accomplishment, but a real challenge. And so I'm impressed and you should feel really good about it. And I appreciate you sharing your custom proprietary cocktail and also talking about the book with me.

[00:32:24] Yeah, so I appreciate it. Absolutely. Well, good luck in your next endeavors for those interested. What what is next for Nick Bowers? Next up on the list, I'm applying to grad schools for chemistry. You know, people sometimes joke that you're on the trail

[00:32:42] and you're hiking for roughly eight hours a day, but people by the end, you'll ask them what they're going to do. And they say, I don't know. And so sometimes even in this time between flying to grad school

[00:32:56] and actually going to grad school, you know, we're still ironing out those details. And so going to grad school, but in the meantime, not quite sure. Well, that's all right. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in. Please make sure to subscribe if you haven't already.

[00:33:13] And I always appreciate a review if you get a chance. So thank you again, Nick. And we'll see you next time on the One Drink for Club.