Rest and Recover Day #2

Today was another day of rest to let my right foot continue the recovery process. Dad and I spent most of the day reading which I thought was a pretty productive way to spend some down time.

Iowa Falls, IA seems to have a community wide focus on reading. There’s a local coffee shop called The Coffee Attic and Book Cellar which has used books in the basement (or Cellar if you will) for sale ranging in price from one to five dollars. It’s a great little coffee shop, and I really like the concept and execution of adding a used book store to the business model. Even the local Hy-Vee grocery store has a used bargain book section. Again, very affordable prices make reading accessible to just about anyone.

The Swing Bridge - Iowa Falls, Iowa

Later in the afternoon, we got out and explored “The Swing Bridge” which is a pedestrian suspension bridge over the Iowa River. Originally built in 1897, it was rebuilt in 1909, 1925, 1956, and finally restored again in 1989. The views of the river both upstream and downstream were pretty spectacular. The sun sinking toward the western horizon provided a golden yellow light to the cliffs lining the eastern bank, and a small waterfall from a creek on the western shoreline fell into the shadow of a bend in the river. 

Purple martins live in the cliffs along the riverside, and they seem to enjoy taking a rest from their bug catching exploits along the inch and a half suspension wires that support the bridge. 

It was good to get back outside, and we’re hoping to be back out on the road very shortly.

A Brief Note on Libraries

In pursuit of the pilgrimage, I've really grown fond of being outside chasing the sun and putting in miles on the trail. There's a new adventure around every turn, and I've found that the anticipation and the discovery is worth every step in the course of exploration.

Pining for Spring - City Dock - Annapolis, MD

During this time I've found another temple of exploration and adventure. The Library.

I remember reading about the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt back when I was in middle school.  I also remember heading out to the library in our home town on the weekends with my dad. To be honest, I wasn't always thrilled to be going with him. He'd spend time in the stacks looking up books on fly fishing and camping, and I'd usually be able to find something in the kid or young adult section to occupy my time...once I stopped complaining and buckled down.

Fast Forward to high school and college, and somehow, my view of the library as a hall of drudgery and work became even further entrenched.  It became the place I went to study and put in the grind to get the grades.  I'd avoid it if I could, and when I couldn't stay away, I'd endeavor to make my stay as brief as possible.

It's taken me two decades to get back into the library again after the high school and college experience. That's a real same. During that time, I can't tell you how much money I've spend on books, but you can rest assured that it was in the thousands of dollars. Not a complete waste, but at least a little wasteful.

I'm grateful to be back in this great hall of learning and self-improvement. In addition to being a real money saver over the last six months, I've really come to appreciate the gems of literature that I've stumbled upong wandering the collection. They've all added joy to my life.

If you're a librarian, thanks for waiting patiently for the prodigal son to return. If you only visit the library, please don't take the place for granted like I did for the last twenty years.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I know at least two places I can find peace, learning, and adventure...outside and at the library.

Look What I Found in the Library

Preparing for a thirty three hundred mile walk involves quite a bit of time out on the trail, but that's not the only consideration.  Today, I took some time in the local library to access some of the experience of the people who have gone before me in this same sort of endeavor.

I really like to read, but compared to some I'm a bit of a piker.  Jim Stavridis is an avid reader, and he's suggested that there are thirty five hundred years of history so there really is no excuse to make the same mistakes as folks who have come before us. That dovetails nicely with my "philosophy" of always trying to make new mistakes. To that end, in preparation for the pilgrimage I find myself in the nearest branch of the county library.

Look What I Found at the County Library - Annapolis, MD

This has been a busy travel month for me, and tomorrow, I believe I'm going to find myself looking at a vista similar to this one.

Airborne - Miami, FL

In addition to providing new and exciting places to get out on the trail for training, travel provides some dedicated time to read, and I'll be exploring the Appalachian Trail with some of the great thru-hikers on this next trip.

The path to the pilgrimage has been an interesting trek so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's revealed around the next bend in the trail.

Airport Boogaloo

Today found me sitting in an airport waiting to catch the freedom bird from where I was to where I was going.

Mobile Regional Airport

It was a pretty lonely tarmac when I left, and it was raining at my final destination. For reasons that I don't understand this struck me as a little sad, and I fell into a it of a melancholy state of mind. I did get a chance to walk and to read.  

The walking is pretty routine at this stage, but reading has become an increasingly rare luxury.  I got about halfway through The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (warning...plot spoilers). It's a book about a long walk that touches on a number of themes that have a personal familiarity that are a little unnerving. It's been a great read so far, and I'm grateful to have been introduced to it. I'm also grateful that at least I know someone else can imagine some of the things that I believe I've experienced out there on the trail.

If you're thinking about walking distances, I recommend this book because it captures what I've come to believe may be some of the more universal aspects of walking for a semi-spiritual reason. On the other hand you could just strap on some shoes and see what materializes. It's probably better to read a little and do a little because neither one of those activities will be entirely whole without the other.

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...