Last of the First

Today is the last day of the first month of the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage.  In the standard fashion, it’s time to review some statistics from the first thirty days. We covered a total of 396.5 miles, the longest day was 25.2 miles, each of us have replaced our shoes one time, and four “zero days” with no forward progress,

We’re having fun in general, and we’re coming up the learning curve pretty quickly.  I’ve also proven to myself that given enough time, I can actually grow a beard.

Day 30 beard picture….entering Seneca Falls, NY

The other things that we’ve learned are more philosophical.  I’ve learned to stop worrying as much. Let’s face it. When you’re moving forward at a blistering pace of 2.5 miles per hour, not much is going to happen very quickly.  Sure, there’s always some danger with traffic, but the shoulders are wide, we are only travelling during daylight hours (except for that one time, and we learned that lesson), and people are very good at giving us a wide berth.  Worrying doesn’t help anyway. If things suck on any given day, and they have sucked, the only thing for it is to embrace the suck and put one foot in front of the other.

I’ve also learned to enjoy being outside.  If it’s sunny, great. If it’s cloudy, great.  Cold, warm, windy, or rainy. All great. No matter what weather we’re having, I’ve got my gear dialed into the point that there is no such thing as ba weather.  Being outside and in the heart of the action is infinitely better than viewing some watered down abstraction of reality from behind a screen.

That’s about it for now.  I’ve learned to be tired and to listen to my body when that happens.  It’ll tell you when it’s time to go to bed, and you’ll be much better off when you listen.