On the long distance trail, when hikers take a day off they call it "taking a zero." Staying put. No mileage.

Well, that's what this hiker did yesterday. I took a zero.

Bad stomach grumblings, a nasty headache and sore throat were enough to knock me down good, calling for a day of rest. A sick day. No work.

But you know me, I don't rest up very well. I tried, but...

So, in-between cat naps and liters of OJ and slices of toast I entertained myself with some reading.

Quite a pile of reading. No shortage at all. Frustratingly so.

I continued with William Least Heat-Moon and Blue Highways, the book I had with me on the NPT, now traveling the blue roads through the high and lonely desert of western Nevada.

I am up to the climax Apollo 11 launch for the Moon in July of 1969 with Buzz Aldrin in Men from Earth, a fascinating and riveting history of rocketry, space flight and the space race between the Soviets and the US. Talk about the ultimate adventure!

I also poked through a couple of books I picked up in NY on the hike, too:

From the Trailhead is an anthology of stories on the Adirondacks by longtime outdoorsman and writer John Washburn. And only a few pages into it, No Place I'd Rather Be by Stuart Mesinger, a compilation of Adirondack lean-to log book entries, has already provided some good chuckles.

I'm a short way along with Tom Joad and family in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, soon to be on their way west from the Dust Bowls of Oklahoma. (BTW, I read The Pearl while on the NPT... a fun, quick read).

And I'm still on Monhegan Island with Colin Woodard in The Lobster Coast and he explores the history of Maine's lobster industry. A tremendous read thus far.

A chapter here, a few pages there. Eventually I'll plow through them all. But by then, the stack will have grown high again and I'll be off on new adventures.

Oh, and never mind the brand new issues of Backpacker, Outside, AT Journeys and AMC Outdoors. Never even got to those.

In any case I am feeling a bit better today, semi-rested and almost ready for the weekend.

But I still think I need to take another "zero" again soon...

What's on your adventure reading list?