Summer started in late June, so this will be the first full month in the northern hemisphere. Even though the days will be long and the nights will be short, this will be a great month to get out under the warm skies and continue to learn more about where we really are and to better appreciate the great celestial motions always going on all around us.

In the years that my father and I have been writing “Worth the Trip” columns for the Maine Sunday Telegram, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, we’ve largely focused on a handful of outdoor activities. John and I are both avid hikers and bikers — and he an accomplished kayaker — and we’ve written about these sports in most of our pieces.

Thomas McGuane, an acclaimed American novelist, wrote a superb collection of fishing essays collected into a book entitled The Longest Silence, published in 1999 and reprinted since. In the beginning essay, a line reminded me — emphatically I might add — of my home river.