Going Walkabout

"Surely we have one more long walk in us?" That's the question my long time friend and fitness(?)partner Sally and I throw back and forth each year, especially when we approach a birthday. In 2003, we traveled to England to do The Wayfarers Coast to Coast Walk. This walk covered 85 miles through the Lake District, the villages and dales of Yorkshire, and then into the wild North York moors. We dipped our boots in the Irish Sea near Windermere on the west coast of England as a starting point. Six days and 85 miles later we reach the North Sea at Whitby on the east coast. Each day we walked 12-15 miles. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to see this spectacular country whose history, literature and culture is so familiar to all of us up close and personal. The walk was rated as "challenging" in The Wayfarers catalog. At the end, we believed them. We left England with a friendship cemented and pride in ourselves to have finished the walk. In this photo we've just dipped our boots in the North Sea at the end of the walk and celebrated with a little bubbly.(I'm third from the right in the back row; Sally is third from the right in the front row. You can see we're all pretty pleased with ourselves.)

So, next week we're heading south to answer that question--do we have one more walk in us? We leave on Saturday, March 14 and we get back home on the 21st. The Wandering Wheels Walking Club of the Ohio Volkssport Association will be picking us up at a rest stop just outside Louisville for a eight day walk through five southern states. Now "through a state" is not exactly an accurate description. We'll actually be on a tour bus for part of the distance. At each walk the bus will turn us out and we'll follow a walk route, precisely or informally as we please. You can see from the map that we'll simply dip south to the Gulf of Mexico and then head north from Florida through Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

Here's our schedule:

Day 1 -- Nashville, TN, 12k Walk
Day 2 -- Memphis, TN, 11k
Day 3 -- Baton Rouge,LA, 10k
Day 4 -- Ocean Springs, MS, 10k
Mobile, AL, 10k (yep, that's 20k)
Day 5 -- Tallahassee,FL 10k
Day 6 -- Madison, GA, 10k
Day 7 -- Atlanta, GA, 10k
Day 8 -- Knoxville, TN 10k

I'm counting up 93 kilometers total. Don't tell me what this is in miles. I just want to think of it as a lot less since it's in kilometers. Check back for a trip report after March 21. I'll be on the look out for a Dog a Day snapshots to share with you. Here's wishing our socks stay up, it's all flat walking, and there's plenty to laugh about along the way.