One Page a Day, Increment Two

Sunset Reflected in the Back Window of the Car

Today I really didn't make any great strides along the path to the cross country pilgrimage, but I am trying to follow the example of the inventor of Pringles, and at least make an attempt at putting in my one page a day.  I suppose I'll count this under the category of Intellectual Practice, and chalk up a win for the Adventure.

I was reminded last week that more often than not taking action often precedes the development of faith.  That is not how I've lived a great deal of my life, and I would describe it as counterintuitive except that characterization flies in the face of a great deal of evidence to the contrary.  The way I have thought of my life during much of my adult life is that faith (be it in a greater power or divinity, myself, or any other entity really)  precedes the action.  I say that this flies in the face of a great deal of evidence principally because when I look back on the way things really unfold, I discover that action is often the precursor of faith when I feel that things are going my way.  Put another way, I've been living my adult life with a ready made excuse for inaction.

It falls along the same lines as acting my way to right thinking rather than thinking my way to right acting.  Maybe it's just me, but I actually find that when I try to intellectualize my way forward in the absence of physical action, the results are often not what I had planned or hoped to achieve.  A more objective view, in light of the empirical evidence, suggests that because I live a spiritual existence in a physical plane and that my principle means of influencing this existence resides in the physical plane, it makes sense that faith follows action and not the other way around.

My habit of generally trying to build faith that will lead to action seems to be one of those characteristics that I must overcome on this journey from coast to coast.  I've heard Rory put it another way.  He's been quoted from time to time saying something along the lines of, "Do something...even if it's wrong."  That's good advice.

It's a bit frustrating that I've spent so much of my adult life trying to stand this sage advice on its head and going about the building of faith in a far less effective manner.  It's also frustrating that when I spend the time to closely observe the way my children interact with their world, they appear to take action in the pursuit of faith.  This tendency manifests itself in their physical courage, and their apparent instinctual ability to act in the pursuit of confidence or faith.  I don't really know where I learned to be so deliberate, but I suspect that I've reached the point of diminishing returns and it's time to revert to those more fearless roots.  The past is the past, and I'll let you know how the present is going.

The First Day of Fall 2014...Another Great Day

Sunset Jogging - Spiritual and Physical Synergy

Today was another good day for progress on the Pilgrimage.  I took a jog that covered the sunset, the weather was beautiful, and the view...well, judge for yourself.

Today is the first day of fall, and it is difficult to imagine that in the next sometime in the next several years, the N2N-TCP should be just about wrapping up in the Pacific Northwest on a day that I see as being much like the day that presented itself to me today.  There are quite a few miles to go, but I put in a small part of that distance tonight just before sunset.

One of the unexpected benefits of this focus on the N2N-TCP Adventure is that I am more content, and performing better in the day job that I'm currently spending my time in to earn a living.  The whole idea of this Pilgrimage really started as a means of fantasizing about an escape from (at the time) my current condition.  It's evolved quite a bit from that fantasy without a great deal of effort on my part.  There is something to be learned from that observation.  

Back then, I was well and truly unhappy.  Today things are different.  My circumstances (from the outside looking in) have really not changed all that much.  One could credibly argue, if one were so inclined, that certain aspects are in fact worse from the original thought of walking across the country.  This is not how I view things.  My outlook has shifted, and I believe that shift in perspective is mostly based on the pursuit (however nascent) due to the pursuit of a dream.  It's an expansive dream, and the daily steps are quite small (and therefore manageable), but the pursuit has changed the way I see.  The progress feels quite remarkable.

Incremental Progress and the Daily Practice

Stress testing some new kicks early on the longest jaunt to date

James Altucher often writes about what he calls "The Daily Practice."  I highly recommend his blog, and I've found that more often than not I can find something that he's writing about that helps refocus my efforts, gives me a little boost, or let's me know that I'm not the only one with some of the same type of thoughts going on in my head.  It turns out, that we all have similar (certainly not common) experiences, and focusing on the connections between us is what really proves to be most beneficial making daily progress toward living in the dream that is life as it happens around me.  Today, he had a post about Gene Wolfe and writing a page a day.  It's a great perspective, and bolsters my confidence in incremental progress.

Speaking of progress, last Tuesday, I embarked upon the longest "training" walk that I've done to date in the march towards the Transcontinental Pilgrimage.   It was a great day, and I covered about 31.2 miles in just a little over ten hours and fourteen minutes.  Seventeen miles of this walk re-traced the ground where I conducted my first long walk in the Pilgrimage effort.  I say it was a great day because I am finding that just slowly, agonizingly slowly, every day is getting better and better.  This is not because I'm training, or have learned any great insights, or found the perfect shoe, or am losing weight, or have the right hydration plan, or any of those other externalities.  Some if not most of those things have incrementally improved over the last several months, but what has changed the most is my perspective.

My shift of perspective is a manifestation of the one of the pillars that I talked about in the last post.  The shift of perspective is spiritual growth.  One of my principle hopes is that the N2N-TCP will result in a great deal of spiritual growth.  Along those lines, the other two pillars of Physical Change and Intellectual Challenge will play a critical role as well, but the Spiritual Aspect is what I'm really looking forward to right now.  

There was not good, bad, and ugly during this walk.  There was progress.  I also got to see this for the second time, and I was able to appreciate how it represented my  relative powerlessness in the grand scheme of things as well as my connection to my surroundings much better this time than my first embryonic attempt covering this ground.  I leave you with a scale model (on an unimaginably small scale) of our very own solar system.

The Sun

The Nine (yes, Pluto's still counted) Planets

This scale model of the solar system covers about five miles of trail on the course of the latest long walk, and it represents millions of miles of physical distance in a very small corner of the Milky Way Galaxy.  The scale of our environment is unimaginable, but I'm grateful to be alive and connected to it in my own very small way.  Till next time...

Water Under the Bridge, and Picking it up Again

US/Mexico Border Wall, Borderfield State Park, CA

There has been quite a bit of water under the bridge since the last time I posted to this blog of the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage adventure.  Some of that water was from the Pacific back several months ago when I walked from Coronado, CA to the farthest southwest edge of the US/Mexico border over the course of three days.  The round trip clocked in at a not very impressive 34 miles, but I was fully engaged at my current day job and that's the excuse that I'm offering for now.

I was reminded this morning that action precedes a growth of faith and/or progress.  In spite of all the evidence that suggests this is actually true, I still find this concept a bit counterintuitive.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I understand it intellectually, but I have a hard time living up to this standard in my day to day life.  Be that as it may, the reinforcement of this concept has gotten me off my proverbial bottom and brought me back to write a bit more about this embryonic adventure that Rory and I are undertaking.

Since action precedes and builds faith, and I'm attempting to live more in the present moment day after day, it follows that there are some lines of action that need to be pursued on our way across the country.  For now, those lines of action can be grouped into three major efforts....

1.  The Physical - training, experimenting with various bits of kit, toughening up, and whatnot

2.  The Intellectual - learning, planning, map recon, business planning, incorporating, advertising, picking a cause to champion, retiring debt, saving, fund raising, etc.

3.  The Spiritual - visions, dreaming, documenting, photographing, reading, and experiencing

To manifest the vision of walking across the country and realize the full spiritual nature of this adventure, it is clear that I must undertake additional action in each of these major efforts, incrementally, one small step, one day a time.  Today, this is my spiritual practice, and I look forward to the adventure as it unfolds.

A Little West Coast "Groundwork"

Thanks again to the marvels of modern conveyance that I touched on briefly in the last post, I once again found myself in the enviable position of transiting to beautiful SoCal to participate in some activities directly associated with the "rat race" last week.  Fortunately for me, even the modern day rodent 5K is not allowed to consume all of my waking moments, so I was able to put in a very solid five days of additional groundwork on the N2N-TCP preparation that I have begun to really enjoy.  I tested some new footwear (my Saucony Guide 7 shoes are proving quite satisfactory by the way) in the form of the balega blister resist socks shown below.  These have complete addressed my blister issues that plagued my prep efforts earlier.  Good stuff, and another example of the upside of living in a modern environment.

All of that is interesting, but the truly fulfilling part of my trip out to SoCal was the groundwork I was able to participate in.  Day 1 was about a 10 mile Jalk(TM) that took me the length of Harbor Island in San Diego.  Just for clarification a  Jalk(TM) is a combination jog and walk meant to cover relatively long distances in a relatively short period of time.  While the distances are not close to what will be required on average for the N2N-TCP, they are distances that I hope will build an endurance base that will prove adequate.  The  Jalk(TM) is my imperfect method of getting these in without injury over the long haul while still being able to (mostly) accommodate my participation in the "rat race" that funds my current standard of living. Compromises all around, but I'm seeking progress, not perfection, at this stage.

Day 2 took me on a 13.2 mile  Jalk(TM) that circumnavigated Mission Bay in San Diego.  Here's a panoramic snapshot that I took about halfway into that little jaunt.

Many thanks to Google Photos for automatically stitching together a couple of shots to make this panorama possible.  This was an interesting  Jalk(TM) because I found myself constantly mentally drawing myself back from competition with the people around me.  They weren't competing with me, but I was constantly having to remind myself that I was not in competition with them either.  I attribute this interesting outlook to being immersed in the "rat race" and recognizing this unnatural tendency toward competition in myself, contravening my stated objectives was a bit disheartening.  More balanced thinking required...check.

Day 3 was a walk up largely dry river bottom that ran just over 11 miles.  Here are some photos from the beginning and turn-around point during that day.

These yellow flowers were very similar to buttercups, and they reminded me of the nickname that my wife used for my youngest daughter (My Buttercup).  The were with me for the entire walk.  It made me feel close to them both for an extended period of time, but that is a story for a different day.

It was a good walk, and I was able to escape from the bondage of competition because I was basically on my own.  I did run across two bike riders and a man leading a horse, but both of those encounters caught me by surprise and were largely a comforting reminder that I was not completely by myself.

Day 5 was a 7-mile walk through Balboa Park that was just stunning.  I went into this one with a plan to circle the park, and I'm still not sure where I ended up going.  I kept thinking back to a statement that a friend made along the lines of staying someplace that you really found fascinating without the pressure of just passing through on the way to yet another destination.  It turned this period of groundwork into a bit of a ramble.  I was able to make it back to my car in the end, so it all worked out quite well.  I'll let the pictures from this one speak (however inadequately) for themselves.

Truly an amazing place.  I loved every minute of it.

Day 5 wrapped up the week with another Jalk(TM) covering just over 11 miles.  One thing I love about the San Diego area of SoCal is the abundant free parking in wonderful areas to explore.  Here's a shot that tried to capture that, but didn't quite do it.  

This weekly wrap-up took me back to the vistas of the Pacific around Point Loma.  It was a great Jalk(TM) where I was able to cover the distance at a faster pace than I have at any time previously during this short period of work-ups, but I still managed to feel pretty peppy at the end.  

It was a great week for training, a great week for refocusing mentally on a small part of what I hope to accomplish on the N3N-TCP, and yes, even a pretty productive participation in the rat race.  I'm finally getting the sense that I'm settling into something that is real and good, and the adventure has started already.  In spite of moments of questionable and unnecessary competition, I sense progress toward a more balanced, present, and slow way of living.  An escape from the linear.  An embrace of the now.  Be present...it's a good way to live.

Acknowledging Some Upsides to the "Rat Race"

View of the Atlantic Watershed 0400 (EST)

View of the Pacific 1500 (PST)

Benjamin's Hand in the Atlantic Watershed

Benjamin's Hand in the Pacific Ocean

The series of photos at the top of this post is an attempt to acknowledge that there are some very real advantages associated with participating in the "rat race" that the N2N-TCP is meant as a mechanism to enable me some level of escape.

Almost two weeks ago, I found myself hanging out on a small beach just about two days of walking (so really not that far) from the Atlantic Ocean.  I was contemplating the lights of a bridge crossing a river feeding one of the main salt water bays that form the Atlantic Watershed.  It was 4 am, Eastern Standard Time.  

I hopped in my car for a relatively short commute to the local international airport, and thanks to the magic of Southwest Airlines and Budget Car Rental I found myself on the beautiful beaches of Coronado, CA a scant 14 hours later looking out across the Pacific Ocean toward Point Loma.

We live in a fantastic period of history where I could have very reasonably found myself in just about any part of the world in a timeframe that was not much different than it took me to transit most of the breadth of North America.  It truly is an amazing gift that the technology associated with this never-ending marathon of Rodentia Muridae Rattus.

The trip wasn't without its challenges.  I had to "endure" the loving ministrations of the Transportation Security Administration, though in all fairness to them, they have greatly improved the efficiency and lessened the annoyance in terms of them doing their job over the last several years.  I had to wait on my baggage for approximately ten minutes, and my shampoo was a little chilly from riding in the cargo compartment of the aircraft.  Finally, "suffering" the indignity of an off-terminal rental car lot was almost too much to bear, although, having the handy shuttle waiting and ready to pick me up almost made up for my hurt feelings.

One of the reasons that I find the N2N-TCP so compelling is that it represents a radical change of perspective.  I hope you can tell that the "endurance", "suffering", and "indignity" mentioned above is intended to communicate inconveniences in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion.  The freedom to travel from the Atlantic Watershed to the Pacific Ocean in a little less than fourteen hours, is a demonstration of technology and a leap forward for humanity that was essentially unimaginable 100 years ago.  The slights now (for me anyway) are indeed slight, but I find it easy to get caught up in the minutiae and forget about the big picture advances that make life so much easier and have turned real dangers into mere frustrations.

I hope that the N2N-TCP will facilitate a return to sanity.  After all, with looking down the barrel of 100+ thirty mile walking days has already put my one hour thirty-four mile commute in some manner of perspective.  The 5K that I ran with my kids did not seem nearly as long an arduous as it may have in the past.  In fact, the 10 min/mile pace seemed blistering compared to the 3.5 mile/hour crawl that I have turned over in my mind recently as a brisk move toward the goals of the N2N-TCP.  Perspective is what I'm seeking, and if I'm lucky, I'll manage to get some...good and hard.

Today, I'm off to make the 12 hour transcontinental hop once again.  During the N2N-TCP, Rory and I will have done pretty well in a three week period to have covered 650 miles.  That's truly an amazing juxtaposition.  Till next time...

Rory Conlan speaks up

 

ENGAGING  THE   ENDEAVOR

Several months ago, while engaged in a telephone conversation with a friend of many years, I was asked if I’d be interested in participating in a long walk.   More specifically, a walk across the United States, coast-to-coast.

                My initial reaction was mildly negative; my verbal response, after a few seconds pause, was non-committal:   “I’d consider it."

        In retrospect, that transaction is consistent with a life pattern I’ve worked to develop – a life pattern that emphasizes approaching decision making deliberately, logically, “linearly” – not emotionally.

        Now, having said all that, I’ve “deliberately, logically, linearly” decided to become a “partner-in-crime” in this coast-to-coast endeavor.  A significant factor in arriving at that decision was my recognition that this isrepresents an ADVENTURE!!

The ADVENTURE has commenced!!

More  later.

Facing Forward...The Second Trial Run (or Walk that is)

The Way Forward on the Second Course of Ground Work

Last weekend, I managed to put the rat race behind me for a relatively short period and conduct the second of what I'm currently calling my training walks.  The concept of training for a Transcontinental Pilgrimage (TCP) strikes me as a bit laughable on the surface of things, but until someone can suggest a more clever title, that's what I'll call these relatively short weekend jaunts for now.

To a degree they do provide some of the escapism that I believe I was seeking when the idea of the TCP first entered my mind.  I found that reflecting back on my first training walk and planning for this one was a much needed diversion from the monotonous bureaucratic grind of the current method I've landed for earning a living.

This walk was just 10.2 miles covered in the space of 3 hours and 01 minutes.  For the math wizards in the audience, you will no doubt note that the pace was just a bit off from the first training walk.  I would be fibbing a bit if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed in that factoid, but as soon as that thought enters my mind, I intellectually understand that particular reaction is an almost Pavlovian response to the some of the very aspects of the rat race that I'm trying to distance myself from.  It's an indication that I have some additional "spiritual," or at the very least attitudinal, work left to do.

All that said, it was a good walk.  I was able to cover the entire distance of what may become one of my principal training routes over the course of two weeks.  As you can see by the picture, I conducted the walk in  the rain.  Interestingly enough, the weather was not such a bother and a little wrinkle in the planning that I found injected a wee bit o' apprehension and challenge to the whole event.  I have a bit of a taste for chaos (more on that later perhaps), so I drew upon this minor adversity in satisfying ways.

I continued to have a minor vexation with blisters, but this last longer walking experience has shifted my butt, and I've continued to take action to mitigate this development.  I'm applying a salve derived from some things suggested in hiking and ultra-marathon forums.  It's pretty early in that process, so I'll report on the results after a little more run time.

One final note.  I looked back on the post documenting my first training walk, and I noticed that I managed to violate an idea that's been maturing in my experience over the last several months that characterizing events or experiences as good and bad is becoming less and less valuable as I get older.  This "philosophy," if you will is relatively knew and probably warrants an explanation all to itself (more on that later I think), but suffice it to say for now that narrowly bucketing any of the experiences associated with living as good or bad is intellectually lazy at best.

I am grateful to have experienced this last walk, and I'm looking forward (but not too far forward) to whatever comes as a result of this endeavor.

The Rat Race in the Rear View Mirror

The Commute

I briefly touched upon the fact that the idea of walking across the United States has been an ongoing compulsion of mine for the last couple of years in the introductory post of this journal.  One of the things that I hope I can develop over time, is a somewhat reasonable and rational explanation for just why this idea has become so "sticky" or resilient in my mind.

When the idea of walking across the country first entered my consciousness, I was in a very dark period of my life.  It would be comforting to blame this on external circumstances, but if I am honest, most of the reasons were largely self-induced.  I strongly suspect that, at the time, I was manifesting a fairly strong desire to run away...run away from my problems...run away from my circumstances...but mostly just run away from myself.

A relatively short number of months later, I find myself with a completely different outlook on life.  The path to this point has not always been easy, fun, or rewarding in the traditional sense, but I am truly grateful that I have had the opportunity to wind my way through it.

That being said, the idea of walking across the United States has not gone away.  I'm no longer running from all of the circumstances in my life, but the compulsion remains.

One thing that I have discovered over the last twenty-four months is that life is an endlessly fascinating journey.  Each moment is a special gift, and staying with this "Present Moment" mindset is both rewarding and surprisingly challenging.

The photo above is representative of my thirty-four mile commute (each way) every day.  It is an analogue of one of the myriad of things that I had grown to loath and was I suspect was trying to escape during those darker times.  I would find myself on the road, at least two hours a day, with 200,000 other people making the daily slog to a job that I did not find fulfilling to support responsibilities and obligations I had collected over the course of my life (often unthinkingly) and absolutely hating every minute of it.

The irony that the drive is about the same distance as the distance that will be required to walk from Newport, RI to Newport, OR in the timeframe I am planning on has not been lost on my.

One of the ways the idea of taking on this adventure has evolved is that I'm no longer running, but I do want to put certain aspects of that "Rat Race" in my rearview mirror.  I don't think I'm particularly unique in this desire, and I think that just about everyone could take the time to live, take the time for a real adventure, put the things we are collectively encouraged to value in the rearview mirror and make our own path.  That is an underlying value for me in this endeavor.  To prove to myself that I can do it, and to show to others that they can as well.  It's an effort to shrink my world, to live in the present, to revel in the now.

I invite you to join me on this journey of discovery with whatever small sense of wonder that I've been able to renew since the idea of the walk first struck me during the darker days.

The First Practice

Google Maps tells me that a walking from Newport, RI to Newport, OR will cover a distance of 3,111 miles and take approximately 1,014 hours to complete.

My initial back of the envelope calculations indicate that to complete the N2N-TCP in 130-150 days assuming a ten-hour walking day, my partner in crime (more on this person later) and I will have to cover about 30 miles per day on average with some float built in for unanticipated outcomes along the way.

After talking this project up for the last several months, it finally occurred to me that I did not have the foggiest idea what walking thirty miles in a day actually felt like.  Forget about the fact that on average we are likely to have to cover that distance for multiple days in a row.  I had no idea what one of those days was going to feel like.

I am not completely inexperienced when it comes to physical experiences.  I have five marathons under my belt including finishing the Marine Corps Marathon four times and finishing the Pensacola Marathon.  Both of these events are great fun (if covering 26.2 miles can accurately be described as fun) and I highly recommend them for anyone contemplating the challenge of covering the marathon distance as a relative novice.  I have also completed two half-marathon distance "races" and participated in a number of shorter distance events.

My partner and crime and I also completed the trek up Longs Peak just outside of Estes Park, CO via the Keyhole Route twice (in much younger days for both of us) and Mount Elbert just outside of Leadville, CO.

All that being said, not that any of it matters anyway, I had no real idea what it felt like to conduct a road hike of any distance.  I decided it might be a good idea here in the early stages of planning for the N2N-TCP, so I set off last Saturday to complete what I described to my family was going to be a fifteen to thirty mile walk in the morning, and that's just (about) what I did.

I suppose you could call the experience a success.  I covered 17.2 miles in just under five hours, and here is what I learned:

The Good

I told my roommates that I intended to complete a fifteen to thirty mile walk on Saturday morning, invited them to participate (no takers), and managed to meet the low end of that milestone within the target time lines.

I now know what it feels like to walk about half the daily average distance that my partner and crime and I are going to have to cover from between 120 and 150 days in a row to capture a title of Transcontinental Pilgrim.  Based on some decisions I made, some mistakes I repeated (that should have been obvious in retrospect), and some poor planning, I'm happy to report that there remains quite a bit of work and progress to achieve over then next 700 days or so.  Put another way...it felt pretty rotten right near the end of the trek, but I'm grateful I made it, didn't have to call my roommates for outside support during the event, and motivated to give it another shot soon.

One of the underlying reasons that the N2N-TCP has been such a compelling idea to me is that I have this desire to shrink my world...to really force myself to live in the moment...to be able to answer (truthfully) the question, "Where are you?" with the answer, "I am here."  To be able to answer the question (again truthfully) the question, "What time is it?" with, "It is now."  This short little jaunt, this practice did achieve that.  At one point on that trail, my whole existence had managed to shrink down to a quarter sized spot on the ball of my right foot...every other step.

That is the good.

The Bad

I had a plan to carry water in my 70 oz CamelBak Urban Assault pack.  It was a good plan that I did not follow.  I figured that I could pick up some water somewhere along the trail.  While theoretically I probably could have executed this back-up plan, I didn't.  That was a mistake.  Five hours of walking on even terrain with very little significant elevation change led to a slight bit of dehydration.  Due to the nature of my environment, this didn't turn into a truly dangerous oversight, but it did lead to a two hour nap after I returned from the trip.  That nap felt fantastic, but I will go to great lengths to avoid the dehydration that turned it from a wonderful diversion to a necessity.

I also forgot some lessons from my marathon days about the discomfort of chaffing and friction.  There are a great many products out there to avoid these discomforts.  I've heard that Body Glide, Mueller Lube Stick, and DZNuts Bliss (for our fairer readers) work quite well.  For me, I going to stick with the old stand-by, Vaseline, due to its ubiquity and low cost.  I suspect that on a 3,111 mile journey ubiquity is going to be a non-trivial positive trait for consumables.  A word of warning, Vaseline does have a tendency to stain clothing, so this may be a consideration if you decide to go this route.

The Ugly

These are my right and left feet.  The blisters are the result of my failure to take into account friction, and an indication that I have some foot toughening as well as footwear selection experimentation to conduct.  That right foot is where I was able to shrink my perspective, so it wasn't all bad.

My partner in crime has a saying..."Physical discomfort is only important when your attitude is wrong."  That's a great perspective that's sometime hard to live up to, but I found myself thinking along these lines during the last three or four miles of The First Practice.

All in all it was a great five hours...I'm glad I did it...and I'm looking forward to Practice #2.

A Difficult Idea to Ignore?

This is the story of an compulsion that began to itch at the back of my brain a couple of years ago and has stubbornly refused all my efforts to shake.  Apparently, I share this malady with Colin Fletcher and after a bit of research, I believe I'm in good if not great company.

The compulsion that has captured no small part of my attention for the last 24 months is a very strong urge to walk across the United States.  The current manifestation has taken the form of a 120 day to 150 day excursion from Newport, RI to Newport, OR.

In order to keep confusion to a minimum, the audience should understand that I am not currently undertaking this journey, but I've started this blog to begin tracking the thinking, planning, maneuvering, and yes, obsessing that I am going through right now. If I can't "Kick this Habit", the end result will likely lead to an attempt of unknown success a couple of years down the  road.

I hope that there is plenty to talk about, and I hope that I can find some relief from this affliction.

Walking across the United States sounds like a great adventure, and I hope can find some amount of satisfaction in sharing this tale.