Greetings: We have a date for this year's Twain-Twichell walk -- Saturday, May 15. And this year I have to warn anyone interested that along with the usual list, I'm sending this email to the staff list of the Mark Twain House & Museum, where I work full-time now, which includes about 40 guides. So the walk will fill up fast. We limit the walk to 30 people, because we walk along un-sidewalked roads for part of the way, and a larger group just wouldn't be safe. About 10 people have expressed interest already. So let me know ASAP, even if you think you've told me already! A simple "I'm in" email will do the trick. Some of you have not been on the walk before so let me recap quickly. For about 15 years an informal group of walkers has retraced the route that the Rev. Joseph Hopkins Twichell and his good friend Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) took on walks from the Nook Farm neighborhood in Hartford to the top of Talcott Mountain in Simsbury. The wooden observation tower that was their goal stood a few hundred yards from where Heublein Tower stands today. The distance is about eight miles and the last mile is uphill, so you need to be ready for some exertion, though we're not trying to break land speed records. Not a fundraiser either -- the point is to walk, talk, and return home, as Mark Twain put it, "not with the foot ache but with the jaw ache." It's free. Jeff Nichols of The Mark Twain House & Museum and I lead the walk. We meet at the Mark Twain House parking lot and leave promptly at 9, walking city streets, suburban roads and finally woodland paths. Once in a while I stop and talk about the Twain-Twichell friendship, particularly near the site of Twichell's home on Woodland Street. We stop for a picnic lunch at Auer Farm, the 4-H farm in Bloomfield, and read aloud from Twain and Twichell. Then it's up the ridge to Heublein Tower, where we take in what in their era was known as The Royal View of the Farmington Valley. We return to the Mark Twain House in cars, you may be glad to know. Early-rising volunteers will have left these cars at the Heublein Tower parking lot. We don't rush, and generally get back to the Mark Twain House around 2. If you'd like to come, let me know quickly, as I said. If you need more information, email back or call me at 860-589-6412. As usual, I'll need six volunteers to leave cars at Heublein Tower at about 8:00 in the morning, so let me know if you can do that. Best,Steve Steve Courtney 7 Union St. Terryville, CT 06786 860-589-6412 [log in to unmask] www.josephhopkinstwichell.com