PDY

You can’t slow it down, you can’t speed it up, and though we’ve got it all measured out in days and hours and fractions and multiples thereof, time will go on, at the same pace it has for millions of years. What’s pretty constant is the time it takes for us to spin around our axis and travel around our little sun, and we’ve managed only to measure it, but not change. As I approach the last quarter of this journey, I’d love to just put time on hold, or at least bring it to a crawl, for I don’t want this trip to end.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this for the last couple of days. In less than a month, I will resume a relatively “normal” life, and all of this will be an awesome memory. The pictures will be reminders, this story will all be in the past and all the feeling and emotion of one of the coolest things I’ve ever done will become history. I’ve never been very good at closure, I don’t like to say goodbye and, though in my mind I know things must come to an end, the rest of me doesn’t want to it to happen. What is for sure is that it is going to.

I already have some very fond memories of this adventure, back in Texas as a pretty naive little walker. Having never done anything anywhere similar to this, I really ventured into the unknown. I had a few tools to guide me, and they’ve done a fantastic job, but I had absolutely no idea of how I would feel after three or four consecutive days, the first week, the first month. Some of it seems like yesterday, while other parts seem like a year ago but regardless, I remember every single day very fondly, albeit the occasional struggle.

Time has elapsed over the last eighty days just the way it has for the prior eighty million years, unchanged, What has changed is the way I am perceiving its passage. Truth be told, I don’t have a lot to do every day except walk along a road, alertly and safely. For the most part, that’s pretty mindless, so there’s a lot to think about to fill the day. Things of course aren’t happening as fast when you walk, and some would say I slowed down time, but the only thing that has slowed down is me. I find myself dividing my days into blocks, instead of minutes and hours. I have the chunk of time between town one and town two, the block I use to consciously just rest an recover, the time to eat, the time to write this story. It is this last one that causes most frustration, but I’ll get back to that. Most of the day, I don’t really know what time it is, in Greenwich terms that is. I do know however that I’m a certain distance from somewhere and it’ll take me a block of time to get there. I don’t worry about what my Greenwich time that may be, for it doesn’t matter; what does matter is remaining sunlight, that block.

Today, while being treated to yet another beautiful walk through the mountains, I started comparing my average pace to that of the automobiles driving by. This is of course based on the hours and minutes I typically haven’t been watching, but it is a nice comparison. My rate of speed is three miles per hour, which includes the time to take a few pictures, post Instagram stories and have the conversations I have with anyone I can. That translates to 20 minutes per mile, a mini-chunk! For math’s sake, let’s just say the cars are going 60 mph, a mile a minute. So let’s use one of the most beautiful valleys I ever seen as an example; it was about three miles long, incredible fall colors on both slopes, a small creek. Had I driven through, I for sure would have appreciated its beauty, but in three minutes, it would have been cached and saved as a memory (on a pretty crowded hard drive!). Instead, I had an entire hour (3 mini chunks!) to completely soak up that little valley and everything in it! I could look at the bright red oak as many times as I wanted to as I walked, and stop if I wasn’t done!

And speaking of time, I realize it it Thursday and I haven’t finished Monday! It has taken me four days to get this written, not sure where the chunks of time went. I did have a very frustrating technical glitch yesterday, though it might have had to do with a tired user error - wrote for about an hour, and somehow, poof, gone. So some of this is in the past, three stale days old. I must say that I over-estimated the amount of “useful” time I was going to have along this trip. Things like walking, making arrangements, washing clothes, and eating meals are all taking a little longer than expected, and I run out of time to write all this, and by then, I’m fighting fatigue. Plus, sometimes I’m not altogether very disciplined.

This week was all about the Shenandoah Valley, which runs to the west of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and has been, in a word, spectacular. I’ve seen all kinds of weather, all kinds of views and every orange, yellow and red in the Pantone color scale. Virginia has put on quite a show, and the last few days are no exception. The highlight of course have been the autumn colors, which I think you’ll agree are much prettier on trees than on this graph.

It took me a couple of days to get from Lexington to Staunton, two days I managed to find very quiet farm roads between hotels, then a third into South Harrisonburg, again, mostly spent on farm roads saying hi to the cows and goats and dawgs. I feel very safe out in the country, everyone waves, and don’t report me to the police! No incidents since my last visit with the sheriff in southeast Arkansas, and I’ve only tripped three times more, bringing the total to seven. I have no idea how many steps I have walked and I have kind of lost track of accumulated miles. They’ve all been recorded, fairly accurately, but it’ll take a chunk of time to record and organize, and I’d rather do something else with that chunk these days. I’ll get to it, but right now I’m not all that concerned.

I’ve also taken over 7,000 pictures, and those I as so looking forward to organizing and using for something cool. I’ve got some ideas that could be a fun. I haven’t really had time to go through most of them, and am curious as to how they will look an a decent monitor. Every picture I’ve taken has been with my iPhone (v8). Before I left, I went back and forth regarding bringing a SLR camera and decided against it, given the weight and difficulty in carrying. I do hope these pictures do the views justice, but I don’t think there is any camera that can accurately capture some of the hues and colors I’ve seen. These last three days have been a constant play on light, with the clouds and sun fighting for the sky.

I don’t use filters or enhancements, and limit editing to cropping, and maybe a little brightness/contrast adjustment, but these are as I saw the view. Of course I don’t have any special lenses, no real zoom, and I avoid the digital zoom, which means I have to get into the right position for the pic, sometimes having to cross the road or deviate from my path. The one thing that has very difficult to avoid, and has probably added a couple of miles to this trip, is the presence of electrical wires and posts! They are everywhere, and sometimes difficult or impossible to get out of the frame, and have been a frustration. I wonder how much it could cost to bury all those cables? Perhaps Texas through NY should consider doing before I do this again, just sayin’ it would make for better pictures and keep me walking straighter.

And yet another great Mexican restaurant to report, this time in New Market, VA. This one not only had great food, but superb entertainment, in the form of Mari and Mishell, from Jalisco and Guatemala, respectively. When they realized I spoke Spanish, we had the nicest conversation that quite quickly turned into one of the best laughs I’ve had in a while. They were very funny, and lighthearted, and they too, like all of us, have their very cool story. Met them for a cup of coffee before work, theirs to the restaurants, mine to the road. Gracias amigas…

Lastly… I’ve mentioned several times I really don’t know what I’m going to do when this is done, but I’m thinking Virginia Tour Guide. We could do walking tours to cool places like L.A. or Central Park, and I could show you the sights, like this, the last covered bridge in operation in the state… how about them apples?