Finding Our Way to Newport, Nebraska

Today was a spectacular day! Last night, it didn’t look like it was going to turn out that way, but it’s amazing what can happen when you just show up and do the work that the Universe lays at your feet.

The weather forecast looked ominous. Seventy to eighty percent chance of rain in the form of “scattered” thunderstorms. Seven am was supposed to dawn cloudy and wet with predicted precipitation coming in at just under half and inch of rainfall an hour.

We awakened at five, and started scrounging for breakfast. The only thing that seemed marginally appealing was a bagel with cream cheese. Now if I tell the truth, I don’t really like bagels all that much. Their only truly redeeming feature is that they serve as a passable conveyance for cream cheese, which is a tasty delight.

The convenience store up the street came to the rescue with an excellent egg, cheese, and bacon breakfast burrito. After one hundred and twenty four days on the road, I’ve become quite the connoisseur of gas station food. I’m not necessarily proud of that statement, but believe me when I tell you that there is a whole book, if not a television series on the Food Network, that should be dedicated to finding the best regional gas station or convenience store food. I’d be happy to host it because I know a good gas station breakfast burrito when I finally find one.

The clouds were heavy, but the promised rain had not started yet, so Dad parked his truck at an insurance agency and joined me for the first five miles.  Once again, we were able to follow the crushed pink granite that formed the foot friendly surface of the “Cowboy Trail.”

Cowboy Trail - Atkinson, Nebraska

Our feet crunched down the trail in unison, and we talked about his time on a farm raising turkeys, fishing, and began to cast about for our question of the day. 

About three miles in and adjacent to the “Sandhills Washout” (a place that livestock semis go to wash out their trailers after hauling some hogs), a light drizzle began to spit from the underbelly of the plum colored clouds.

“Do we want to stop and put on our pack covers?” Dad asked.

I tersely replied, “I don’t.” Now I don’t have anything in particular against pack covers. They have their uses like keeping your stuff dry, but they really make things inconvenient. I’d prefer to wait until it is beyond question that the sky is about to split open and deliver a good drenching. This is one area, among more than a handful, where my trail philosophy diverges from Dad’s own way of looking at life on the road.

We paced on, and though the sky continued to threaten, these threats proved a bluff, and we reached Dad’s five mile turnaround point with nothing much wetter than a twelve inch rain. That’s a rain where there are at least twelve inches between every drop that hits the ground.

Dad turned and headed back to the truck, and I continued on toward the west. About two hours later, the sun finally broke through the overcast, and though there were thunderstorms to the north and the south, I was able to watch their cottony tops descend to their fresh bruise colored undersides from the dryness that comes under the sweeping expanse of achingly blue sky.

Eventually the trail ran out, and I had to return to the highway. The traffic was light, and the shoulder was wide, so even this minor inconvenience worked out in the end.

Ranchland - Stuart, Nebraska

My foot felt good and my legs felt strong. A Navy sized dose of Vitamin M kept the soreness at bay, and I walked through the most verdant ranchland that I’d ever seen. Cows followed me along fences hoping for food, and old-school windmills harnessed the light breeze from the south to fill livestock tanks with water pumped up from the ground.

Big Blue Sky - Stuart, Nebraska

I met Dad again toward the end of the day. He’d pulled up the truck to a gas station listed for sale, and we walked the final part of the day’s journey into Newport, Nebraska. 

Entering Newport, Nebraska

Having covered a little over seventeen hundred and sixty one miles since leaving Newport, Rhode Island, we wrapped up the day’s efforts in front of the Newport (Nebraska) Pool Hall. The pool hall is a community space serving the ninety-seven residents of this small Nebraska town with a three stool bar, a single pool table, and a handful of snacks. The hall is open without any oversight twenty four hours a day. We signed the guest register and took a few photos before heading back to the truck.

Newport Poll Hall - Newport, Nebraska

Today was an exceptionally good day!

Transitions Into a New Future

Today the morning's walk was marked by a great sunrise over the Anacostia. It proved to be an auspicious start to a day where I felt that the transition to a different and I believe better life moving forward gained some significant headway.

Sunrise over the Anacostia

Deep into the third round of thirty day minimalism, the practice is finally getting into a comfortable rhythm, and I'm really liking the results. Meeting new people is starting to gain some traction, and I'm mostly keeping up with a solid effort at previous incarnations of the thirty day principles.

A year ago, I was beginning to sense that major lifestyle shifts might be possible. Now I know they are a reality with some relatively simple rule sets, and that knowledge is giving me a great deal of confidence that almost no goal is out of reach if you make small steps in the right direction and keep it up over time.

Acting the way to right thinking has been the key in unlocking this previously untapped resource for me, and I'm grateful that my focus has shifted from a lethargic intellectual approach to a more active physical approach. I'm also grateful that I've had a great partner in this journey in Rory Conlan. I believe we've supported each other in making some significant changes, and that relationship has really been a bedrock of some of the great things that are happening around both of us.

Today we spent over an hour discussing the walking route between Newport, RI and Newport, OR.  We both approached the challenge in our own way. He tackled it with paper maps in a Rand McNally road atlas, and I took a more digital approach with Google Maps. Regardless of the reference material, this action and discussion helped solidify the path forward in our march toward what I hope will be a collective adventure of a lifetime.

I haven't the faintest idea what tomorrow might bring, but I'm excited to experience the unfolding of what promises to be another great day.

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.

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.