[Editors’ Note: Yes, technically you are supposed to wait until a fellow hiker “gives” you a trail name. But early on, we decided we wanted a matching pair of names, a task too important to trust to perfect strangers. Therefore, we would name each other. So began…]
The Search for the Perfect Trail Names
Part I: Kitty Hawk & Mr. Wright
During the summer of 1975, I was making a living giving interactive first person history programs portraying airplane inventor Orville Wright at work in his temporary workshop/ hanger on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Early in the season I met my future bride when she approached the information desk at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and I asked “May I help you?”
[Editor’s Note: Over four decades later, we are still dealing with the ramifications of the answer to that simple question…]
We began talking about a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail shortly after that, and since then the idea has always at least simmered on our back burner. “Kitty Hawk” has a nice ring to it for a female trail name (at least certainly better than “Kill Devil Hills”!). And, although she ostensibly arrived to do a summer internship, Ms. Hawk would later admit coming to the beach that year to look for “Mr. Wright.”
(For readers unwilling to wait for us to finish this section [admittedly a low priority], feel free to follow our trail name search on our original Trail Journals site.)
