American Bison

Today, we got back out on the road. Dad walked the first couple of miles this morning to test out his foot. Everything seemed to work out pretty well. 

He spent the rest of the day trying to track me down on the trail to help with logistics resupply. He did a great job, and really pulled my iron out of the fire with a timely delivery of some tape for a blister that was really giving me trouble.

It’s good to have him back, and it was good to get out on the road and put some miles under our shoes.

American Bison - Linn County, IA

Not too many truly photogenic moments today, but I did see the first American Bison on the trip. Sure, they were on a bison ranch, but it was good to see these creatures roaming a small piece of what was once their vast unchallenged territory.

Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday!  

Some "injury" clarification

I apprently was a little casual in my last posting about the foot injury that prompted me to return to Plano -- I think that I was so deeply immersed that I assumed others were cognizant of the situation.   BLUF (bottom line up front),  I developed cellulitis in my right foot.     Several years ago, I had foot surgery that resulted in deformation of toe alignment, and subsequen abrasion between some of them.     This was never more than a minor irritant, even during some long distance walking for training.    Not so a few weeks ago.     During that period, Josh and I spent a couple of long days walking (during rain) with wet shoes, sox and feet.  In the circumstances it was impossible to maintain any semblance of dry feet.      The logical consequence of skin softened from being soaked for a long period and subjected to abrasion was development of blisters.  Altering my walking foot position to minimize discomfort resulted in additional blisters.   Our attempts to affect healing were unsuccessful, and I developed much swelling and a bad apparent infection.   While in Yorkville IL, I sought medical evaluation and was sent to a nearby Immediate Care facility. The resident physician diagnosed the infection as cellulitis, and: 1) administered Immediate intravenous injection of a current "designer" antibiotic,  2) prescribed oral clindamycin,  3) instructed me to avoid strenuous exercise, and  4) and to keep my foot elevated to promote healing.      As should be expected from an Immediate Care facility,  I was dismissed with instructions to go to Emergency Care if the symptoms. persisted or worsened.   In fact, the people involved  did exactly what an Immediate Care  facility should have done!! Every one there was SUPER.  The incoming receptionists, the medical technician, the attending nurse and the doctor.  (Despite the situation, it was a good experience.)        Josh and I discussed it at length, and I decided on and executed a return to Plano to get under the care of my doctors, whom I know, and who know me as a person (not a transient passing through).   It was the correct decision and correct action.   The result was major changes, and not what I would have preferred.     I VERY RELUCTANTLY elected to change my role in n2n.    That's an accounting for another posting, with additional details that I have not posted earlier.  'Til then,   Rory (Jay)

Dad Returns

Dad Returns to the Road - Cedar Rapids, IA

Look who arrived in today from the south! He's still recovering, and for now he's going to play a logistics support role. I'm sure grateful to have him back.

Plan to Reengage "the Scene"

It's been 12 days since I departed Josh and n2n in Yorkville, IL to return to Plano for treatment of my injury.  It is my intent to commence my return to the trek today, July 04.  It's with mixed emotions. I'm happy to be doing so, but greatly distressed by the  necessity to do so in a different capacity. My participation as a committed 100% walker appears to have to come to a halt.   I'm having to chose between undesirable alternatives:  1) attempting to continue as a walker,  and introduce more risk potential to overall success of the effort,  or, 2) accept a diminished role, that of providing valuable (maybe essential) logistic support as the trek enters an altered environment wherein greater distances make  supply of essential consumables less predictable.   My heart tells me (loudly) to pursue option 1), and accept the additional risk to success    My logical, rational, unemotional self tells me to relinquish my personal "druthers",  and accept  2),  the  support role.   Begrudgingly,  I'm  choosing  option 2).  (I can almost hear my medical advisors applauding the choice !  They advise me that the foot needs another 10_15 day stand-down for recovery;  they assure me that another two days of wet foot walking almost guarantees a recurrence of the injury.   With heavy heart,  I choose to not acquiesce to my heart's desire with the incumbent risks to an already aggressive time line.  I'll now be functioning as support as we go forward.  More later.    Jay

Fireworks

I just couldn’t catch my stride today. Normally, I can get into a steady rhythm, and just roll along as the miles click past. That didn’t happen from the moment I left this morning.

I couldn’t figure it out. The terrain, though a little bit hillier than last week, wasn’t incredibly daunting. The weather was warm and muggy. What else is new? There was even a breeze that helped cool things down a little. I’d gotten a good night's sleep and had a good breakfast. I’d even had a great conversation with four new acquaintances before heading out.

I tried to go faster. I tried to go slower. I even had a stretch where I took quite a few sit down rest breaks, but nothing really helped.

At about the ten mile point as I was wracking my brain to figure out what was wrong, I suddenly realized that I was entirely focused on getting to the end of the day.

One of the many reasons I wanted to take this pilgrimage was to shrink my world to the one meter radius around me, and I was not following that guiding principal today.

Fortunately, I have some wise yogis in my life who have pointed out the tendency in all of us to fall into a laser like focus on the outcomes from time to time. Their advice is to fight this habit and work with your body and the Universe no matter what shows up in any given session.

I stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. If you can own your breath you can own life itself. I owe that piece of wisdom to these very same yogis. I thought back to what they might advise, and I knew to a person each one would suggest that I set an intention to guide my practice of walking.

I decided to focus my intention on taking in my surroundings and flowing along with whatever the Universe revealed.

I’d like to say that my gait became smoother and my stride fell in line, but it didn’t. Sometimes things just happen that way. I believe, in this case, it was the Universe’s way of encouraging me to slow down and be one with whatever showed up.

That part of the practice worked. I began to notice things like the proliferation of wildflowers growing just off the side of the road. I noticed that I was surrounded by hundreds of brown and orange butterflies, but there was not a single gnat in sight.

A few people have asked me how I was going to celebrate Independence Day, and I half-jokingly told them I was going for a walk. That is exactly what happened.

I noticed that the flowers reminded me of fireworks, or that fireworks remind me of flowers. Suddenly it dawned on me that I was seeing my own personal “fireworks” display all along the roadside.

Fireworks Along the Roadside - Linn County, IA

I hope you enjoyed a safe relaxing Independence Day. Make sure you don’t get caught up in thinking about destinations and outcomes too far out in the future. You might miss the fireworks unfolding right before your very eyes.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Morning Person

I hope I don’t contradict a previous post, but I’m a little tired and I’ll beg forgiveness rather than do the research.

I’m going to share a secret that I’ve tried to keep hidden as far back as I can remember. My caginess with this particular piece of knowledge went so far that I even had myself fooled for quite awhile.

Morning Rainbow - Lowden, IA

I’m a morning person.

There, I’ve said it, and it feels good to finally get it out in the open.

I know that being a morning person is not necessarily a popular approach in our culture.  There are meme after meme after meme commenting on coffee or time or some other way to kick start the morning. There are mugs and shirts and hats and tee shirts all warning others not to approach until a person’s had time to get rolling.

I actually like the morning because that’s when I have the most energy. The day is fresh and young and with the passing of night, it seems imbued with almost limitless possibilities.

This is especially true at this point in the walk. Now I’m not gonna say that the morning is fresh and crisp. Mornings of late have been humid steamy affairs, but let’s face it….the temperatures and humidity aren’t going to get any more conducive to walking then they are in the morning. It reminds me a little of Navy Dive School in Panama City, FL where eighty-five degrees and sixty percent humidity at six thirty in the morning was as cool as it was going to get.

My legs and back are fresh, and the pack just doesn’t seem that heavy. The grips on my trek poles are dry and supple rather than slimy and slick with the afternoon palm sweat that’s just around the corner. Twenty or twenty-five miles doesn’t sound too difficult in the morning. That spring in your step that makes you believe this fallacy, but it will not survive very long as the sun makes its steady climb to its zenith. Still, in the morning anything seems possible.

Today, the thunderstorms that ushered in crashing rain and lightning that lit up the sky last night had passed. In their wake, as the sun peaked up over the eastern horizon, a full rainbow winked from the west. This morning, anything was possible. The rainbow was a sign from the Universe that the time to slog westward had arrived, and I’m grateful I was up and around to see it.

Common Ground

Flags in a Cornfield - Calamus, IA

One of the great benefits that I’ve realized over the course of the pilgrimage has been the great gift of time to step back from the complexity of day to day living and reflect on concepts and ideas that have crossed my path.

Today, my only company was the steady plop, plop, plop of my feet on the asphalt shoulder of the road, the screeched warnings of the red winged black birds escorting me from their territory, and the occasional car or truck swooshing in from the east to bomb past my steady, if slow, westward plod.

I caught myself thinking about something I overheard on a television news and commentary show the other day.  As a practice, I’ve made an attempt to remove television programming from my day to day life, and on balance, I feel quite a bit more serene because of this policy. That said, the proliferation of constantly broadcasting screens in diners, hotels, and in any number of surprising places makes it nearly impossible to remove the influence of television entirely.

The discussion I overheard was surrounding the upcoming 2020 election cycle, and the topic being discussed involved the strategies associated with one candidate or another’s ability to connect with “rural Americans.”

I’m not really sure what “rural American” means in modern era. A great deal of the area we’ve been traversing could probably be categorized in the rural bucket. Compared to the cities, population densities are lower, and there have been times that we’ve walked for several miles without seeing another human being.  In the age of vehicular travel, this is a pretty amazing occurrence.

We’ve also had the great experience of meeting a great many people, but at no time did I find myself thinking of any of these people as “rural Americans.” If I bucketed them at all, I might think of them as hailing from a particular state, but even that is not a common thought that runs through my head.

The people we’ve met have been friendly and welcoming and curious and hard working. Almost to the person they want to improve themselves and provide a good environment to raise their families. They’ve been older and younger, highly educated and some had degrees from the school of hard knocks. They’ve come from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Honduras, Nicaragua, Russia, Georgia (both the state and the country), Ukraine, Germany, France, and many people who are multi-generational Americans.

Today I met Mike who was originally from India. He moved to Queens, NY about twenty five years ago, but he’s spent the last eleven years as a successful small business owner in Calamus, IA. Mike asked about my backpack and trekking poles, and we spent a moment commiserating about the heat and the gnats. On the issue of gnats, he had a solution which he generously shared with me.

I guess my point is that Mike, whatever he may be, is not a “rural American.” He’s an American, and he had a solution for gnats that he was willing to share.

These labels that slip into our consciousness are largely not useful in my experience out here on the road.  While our individual experiences are unique, we all are generally seeking the same fundamental things out of life, and we’re certainly bedeviled with common problems….like gnats.

This trip has served as an important reminder for me of our common ground and connectedness, and I’m grateful for all the people I’ve crossed paths with that have served as examples of these truths,

On an unrelated side note, I’d like to give props to whoever designed the Iowa State Flag. The colors coordinate nicely with our National Ensign, the seal in the middle conjures images of the history associated with this great state, and the flag leaves no ambiguity about which state it symbolizes. It’s a great boon to the poor twelve year old struggling mightily with a flag recognition quiz in the geography block of a fifth grade social studies class. Truth be told, it helps me quite a bit too.

Barnstormers

Some of the first forms of civil aviation in the United States were Barnstorming and Flying Circuses. These events really took off during the 1920’s as reliable military surplus biplanes from WWI were sold off to the public for a fraction of their cost.

Aviators took these aircraft and performed shows, sold airplane rides, and generally tried to impress people with their piloting skills in an era before Federal Aviation Regulations really took hold.

Barnstorming itself was a fairly egalitarian pursuit with women and minorities gaining fame and notoriety based on their skills in cockpit. It was a raucous era in aviation producing greats like Charles Lindberg, Katherine Stinson, and Bessie Coleman.

These barnstormers introduced America to the wonders and possibilities of commercial aviation. Victims of their own success, the Federal Government enacted a series of progressively more restrictive regulations. Those regulations coupled with the end of surplus biplane sales caused the practice of barnstorming to basically vanish by 1929.

As I pass into progressively less populated areas, my imagination has wandered with thoughts of what it would have been like to live in those heady days of early aviation. If you could get a plane and some training, you too could be a pilot.

Hopping from grass strip to grass strip across the prairie states would have been quite a bit faster and probably more exciting than walking. Barnstorming, smuggling, and delivering the mail could put food on the table, and no one was standing in TSA lines just to have to remove their shoes and their jackets.

Airplane in a Cornfield - Clinton County, IA

As I was trudging along thinking about simpler times, I glanced to my left. Low and behold, hearkening back to those heady early days of aviation, there was an airplane in a cornfield. The hanger was amongst the farms outbuildings, and a grass strip led from the door, down through the cornfield and, I assume, into the sky.

I’ve been looking for one of these throwbacks to the barnstorming era, and today, I actually got to see one!

Disappearance from the "Scene"

Jay disappeared from the n2n scene June 21 as a consequence of a poentially severe right foot problem.       During a period of walking with wet feet because of rain and its after effects,  I'd developed multiple blisters on my right foot.  On two toes and the ball of the foot. Our treatment of them was of no positive effect and they worsened.  Continued walking became pretty uncomfortable, and by the time we arrived in Yorkville (June 20) I had a lot of inflammation and swelling.  The toe area took on an angry red coloration.  Attempts to see a local doctor were unsuccessful, but I was directed to an Immediate Care facility in nearby Oswego.  I received prompt attention, was immediately diagnosed with cellulitis of the foot, given intravenous antibiotics and a prescription for Clindamycin.  I was instructed to keep my leg elevated, "avoid strenuous activity", keep my foot aerated, and "IF ANY WORSENING OF SYMPTOMS GO TO THE ER."   The treatment I received was immediate, and appropriate (as best I knew).   The entire staff we dealt with (front desk, technician, nurse and doctor) were GREAT, and I am thankful for them and the treatment.  The diagnosis was more than disheartening.  Particularly in view of the fact that within the last year three of my acquaintances (including my wife Sarah) have experienced cellulitis.  Each was hospitalized, one for 3 days, one for 5 days, one for 9 days.  (Cellulitis has potential for dire consequences if not treated properly.)    I elected to return to Plano to get with my PCP.  He was available for an early Monday appointment.  I flew back Sat, June 22.         Dr. Tran confirmed the diagnosis, added a second antibiotic, and scheduled a follow-up visit for Jul 01 (today).   He recommended cessation of walking (read that: stay off the foot,  keep it elevated, for 10-15 days).       On the n2m front:  we had reached a point where it was going to be more demanding -- potentially longer distances between predictable resupply sources; progressing into summer (hotter) weather, proliferation of "noxious insects"; etc.    I'm not willing to abandon the trek.  Much of life involves making decisions -- making choices between alternatives in the face of uncertainty.  I'm/we're at one of those junctures.    C'est le vie.

Crossing the Mississippi

Seven states down. Five to go. Today, on my last official day in the Navy and the ninety-first day on the road, I crossed the Mississippi River, leaving Illinois in my wake, and entering Clinton, Iowa.

I’d been looking forward to this geographic milestone, and I was ready to spend some quality time on the bridge over the main channel of the river relishing the moment and taking some well framed pictures for posterity.

One of the things you think about when planning a cross country walk is how you are going to cross large bodies of water. If you plug Newport, RI and Newport, OR into Google Maps and ask for walking directions, the first leg of the recommended course leaves Newport, Rhode Island on a ferry headed headed to Fall River, Massachusetts. This is because Google doesn’t recognize the relatively newly opened mixed use pedestrian and bicycle lane along the Sakonnet River bridge at the north end of Aquidneck Island.

The route will also take you into Canada and back down into Michigan with another ferry ride from Muskegon, MI to Milwaukee, WI.

Anyway, not wanting to lose any steps along the way, I had to figure out a route that got around or across these bodies of water.  Around is pretty easy. It just means a lot more steps. Across can be a bit of a challenge, but I was pretty sure I’d figured that out.

As I was planning, it occurred to me that I was probably going to cross some major rivers, and I might want to check out those arrangements as well. My first thought was the Mississippi, so I looked at the route and went down to the Google Street level view to check things out.

It looked great.  A bridge with a shoulder. No problem.

These assessments were made from the comfort of my desk with either a sufficient amount of heat or A/C to make the temperature just right. I was probably pretty well rested, and I had access to a ham sandwich and a nice cold beverage of choice in the refrigerator right down the hall. Once I was satisfied with my Mississippi river crossing, I never went back and looked at it again.

As I approached the bridge this afternoon, I thought, “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Sure there was a shoulder. It was about two feet wide, and the only thing separating that narrow ribbon of asphalt from the eastbound lane of traffic was a poorly painted white line.  

I glanced over at the other side.  Same thing, but I wouldn’t be facing traffic. I thought back to my planning. I’d checked this out, right? Am I in the right spot? I consulted my phone.  Yep, right spot.

Apparently, due to lack of experience evaluating Google street level views in the early stages of the planning process, I’d greatly overestimated the width of the shoulder. I checked to see if there was another way across, and of course that option looked just as bad and would add another five or six miles to my planned daily total.

I glanced up the bridge again.  “Only one thing for it. Move forward.” I asked the Universe for a safe passage and stepped onto the rise of the bridge.

Needless to say, I didn’t dawdle a whole lot savoring the moment and snapping a great many pictures.  I did get enough of a break in the eastbound traffic to catch a few shots of, you guessed it, a train leaving Illinois and heading into Clinton, Iowa just to the south of me.

Train Crossing the Mississippi on a Swing Trestle - Clinton, Iowa

Having done what I could, I pressed on and scarcely over a mile and what seemed like an hour and a half later stepped back onto a land level sidewalk. There was a grocery store on the corner and I ducked in and sat on a bench next to the carts. I soaked up the air conditioning and let my pulse settle back into a more steady rhythm.

It was not the crossing I’d imagined, but it was a good one. Tomorrow the attempt to cross the first of the big five states begins, but right now the weather warning sirens are going off.  Google tells me that’s a severe thunderstorm warning with pretty high winds. I hope they judge weather better than walking routes. I think I’ll go check it out for myself.