Jane V. Blanchard

I am an adventurer, author, public speaker, and blogger. I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, lived in Hampstead, New Hampshire, twenty-three years before moving to Sarasota, Florida, where I now reside.

I climbed Mount Washington, in 1974. Since that initial ascent, I have climbed twenty of the forty 4,000-foot mountains in New England.

I started mountain bike racing at age 50; in 2002, I won second place in the Masters Division EFTA (Eastern Fat Tire Association) Championship Series.

In September and October 2011 and at 60 years old, I took my first long walk--the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage across northern Spain. As I walked, I talked with women from different nations. The book, Women of the Way, weaves these conversations with my journey.

When I married Dennis in 1974, we joked about creating a lifetime of memories to chat about when sitting in our rockers in old age. At 64 years old, we are still creating memories, experiencing life as fully as possible, and looking forward to a long future.

In 2013 we hiked and biked through thirteen European countries, and now I am writing about those adventures. My next book will be on Hadrian's Wall Path.

This year we returned to Europe and back packed for seven weeks. I plan to write about those adventures for your escape and entertainment.