{"id":1707,"date":"2008-01-28T06:23:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-28T14:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/01\/28\/hiking-for-romantics-hopeless-and-otherwise\/"},"modified":"2008-01-28T06:43:53","modified_gmt":"2008-01-28T14:43:53","slug":"hiking-for-romantics-hopeless-and-otherwise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/01\/28\/hiking-for-romantics-hopeless-and-otherwise\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiking for romantics, hopeless and otherwise"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guy I work with told me once he liked to take his dates to Castle Rock State Park.<\/a> I was already married when I took up the habit so I don’t bring a lot of direct experience on combining hiking and dating, but I do know a few things from taking my wife on hikes. To wit:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Stay on trails you know by heart (wow, a pun!) and don’t do anything stupid. Nothing says “loser” like having to call in a search and rescue team. <\/li>\n
  2. Ask about allergies ahead of time and be prepared to change all your plans on a dime if an allergic reaction happens (if she has pine-related allergies<\/a>, stay out of the redwoods, for instance). Put some Benadryl in your first aid kit. <\/li>\n
  3. \nSingle-track trails are terrible for conversation — avoid till you get to know each other (there’ll be plenty for single-tracks to tune out annoying chit-chat about her best friend’s outlaw biker boyfriend after you’ve been dating a few months). <\/li>\n
  4. Walk at your companion’s pace (good advice for any hike but especially when you’re trying to prove you might be worth hanging out with on future hike).<\/li>\n
  5. Five miles is a long<\/em> walk for a rookie — as long as you’re demonstrating your capacity for compassion and empathy by asking about allergies, ask probing questions about fitness (think of the payoff if you have a leg fetish!). <\/li>\n
  6. Unabridged version of “no means no”: “I don’t like to hike” means “I don’t like to hike.” <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    OK, so that feels like a good start. Please weigh in with your own insights — dates from hell are especially welcome. Include some locales if they spring to mind. <\/p>\n

    (Bonus link for those who like to plan ahead<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A guy I work with told me once he liked to take his dates to Castle Rock State Park. I was already married when I took up the habit so I don’t bring a lot of direct experience on combining…<\/p>\n

    Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31],"tags":[191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}