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.

Sometimes You Grind

Not every day on the road is sunshine and unicorns.  Today started off clear, cold, and sunny, but it didn’t take long for the temps to warm up, the clouds to roll in, and the gray to descend on the walk.

Dad pulling into the town limits of Auburn, NY under gray and cloudy skies.

Shortly after the gray rolled in, we found ourselves slogging through about five miles of urban terrain.  Sometimes it just works out that way. Sometimes there aren’t a lot of glorious scenes. Sometimes the only animals you see are the ones not lucky enough to make it across the highway.  Sometimes you just have to grind because that’s all there is to do on that particular day.

Today was one of those days, and grind we did.  Just under seventeen miles, and Dad ground through them like a champ.  Sometimes I forget that he’s seventy eight years old. He certainly doesn’t act like it.  He’s young at heart, and I’m proud of his effort and amazed at his resilience.

At the end of the day today, we’d managed to grind through a total of three hundred seventy-four point eight miles since leaving Newport, Rhode Island a little less than a month ago.  There were times that I wondered how far we’d be able to go, but those concerns are gone now. If we want to finish this trip, I now know that we can. All we have to do is keep grinding.  

Days like today are a good reminder of that truth.

Back on the Road - Art and Fun in Syracuse

We finally left Syracuse, and it’s good to get back on the road and making forward progress.  We started off a little slow today. We had to catch a ride back to the place we left the trail, and the sky was spitting a cold misty rain.  Tough to get going, but we finally stepped out.

One of the best things about being back on the road was that we started to pick up some of our pilgrimage habits.  Based on a clever Instagram follower, Dad’s taken up the challenge of photobombing any selfie I take during the trip.  It’s become a bit of a game, and he turned in what I think were some comic genius performances this afternoon.

This old dude keeps photobombing me no matter where I go!

I couldn’t stop laughing at his antics.  Good stuff.

I also am glad we’ve cleared the city to the west.  There are great advantages to walking in a city. Restrooms are easy to come by, and just about any service you need (and some that you don’t) are never too far away.

On the other hand, the traffic is worse, the shoulders of the roads are generally narrower, and the scenery is generally not quite as nice.  One exception to the scenery bit are the public displays of artwork. I love coming across these islands of creative genius during our urban explorations.

You never can tell what you might stumble upon while wandering around a city.

People are really endlessly fun, and today was no exception.

It’s good to be back on the road, and we’re looking forward to getting back into our travelling rhythm.