Browsed by
Category: walking

Alert and Predictable

Alert and Predictable

Comments 0 Comment

Noticed on my walk this morning: signs reading “Be Alert and Predictable!” Not your typical path-sign wording, but understandable given the busyness of the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, where bicycles whiz by at 30 miles an hour. 

An unsuspecting pedestrian who strays from her lane might be mowed down by one of these speeding cyclists, so better to walk steady and stay to the right. 

The signs had me thinking, though, about predictability and alertness and how those two don’t always go hand-in-hand. An alert human may in fact be less predictable, more prone to straying off the beaten path and into a tangle of undergrowth, lured there by the song of a bird or an angle of light.

Concentration

Concentration

Comments 0 Comment

The old map showed it, clear as day, a trail angling off to the north from a paved path I usually take out and back. So we explored it yesterday, on a cold, cloudy afternoon when the leafless trees held no secrets.

It looked like little more than a deer trail at first, but the logs flanking it gave it respectability. Before long there was a sign: Pine Branch Trail. Thinking it might be a distraction from the ultimate destination — a Nature Center — we ignored it and pressed north. We made it over a bridge, down a paved path, back into the woods on the Snakeden Trail, then crossed Glade and into the forest where we started. 

I’m speaking as if great distances were covered, and they were not. But new territory slows the walk, makes one concentrate on the subtleties. And concentration refreshes the mind. 

My Town?

My Town?

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday, I took an impromptu walk down the Mount Vernon Trail, starting at Gravelly Point. Planes were swooping in low to land, so low that the wind from their passing ruffled the leaves of trees in their path. An enthusiastic group of plane-spotters lined up at the end of the park, practically on the runway, to wave and cheer as the 737s soared above them.

The magic of the walk was in the mingling of the low-tech — the quiet lap of river water against the shore — with the high — the roar of jet engines making their final approach to National.

And then there was the beauty of the path and the District viewed at three miles per hour. The red maples still flaming, a graceful weeping willow, geese sluicing into river water before landing in a puddle under the I-395 overpass.

I hated to leave the scene: the Washington Monument rising ethereal on the other bank, the graceful arch of the Memorial Bridge, and, in the distance, the spires of Georgetown’s Healy Hall. It’s my town, if I want — and walk — it to be.

Suspect

Suspect

Comments 0 Comment

Most of my walks are in the suburbs these days, which makes sense given the title of this blog, but when I commuted downtown, a fair number of my forays were in the city. This allowed for more constant comparisons between the urban and suburban stroll.

One of the major differences is that in the city we walk to get somewhere, but in the suburbs we walk to walk — because there are few errands we can run on shank’s mare. For that reason, the long-distance suburban walker, the one who dares hoof it along a major road, can be suspect. This is true for people of all races. 

In his book The Lost Art of Walking, Geoff Nicholson tells the story of a well-dressed man stopped by a sheriff’s patrol car on the one-mile walk to his office in Los Angeles County.  It was on “a completely empty stretch of suburban sidewalk, at midday,” the man explained, and he was dressed in a coat and tie when he was ordered to identify himself and explain where he was going. “As a pedestrian,” the man said, “I was suspect.”

According to his definition (minus the coat and tie), I’m suspect, too.  

Another Way

Another Way

Comments 0 Comment

Walking and talking — such an ancient practice. Almost as ancient as walking, bipedalism, itself, and oh so delightful. 

Over the weekend, with family visiting, I’ve been reminded of this all over again, how naturally one falls into the rhythm of common footfall and how naturally this footfall lends itself to the exchange of words, thoughts, confidences. 

Although I’m usually a solo walker, and happily so, I don’t mind being reminded there’s another way.

Burying the Lead

Burying the Lead

Comments 0 Comment

Last night I read Erling Kagge’s Walking: One Step at a Time, and I did so blind, you might say, unaware of the Norwegian explorer’s biography and significance. 

It was the journalist in me that wanted to shout “you buried the lead” when I came across — on page 155 of a 166-page book — the acknowledgment that “I had a bit of luck in that no one else had yet managed to walk alone to the South Pole.” Uh, what?! 

Still, it was an interesting exercise to make it almost to the end of this slim volume before learning why, in essence, this slim volume was written. Which is not to say that Kagge doesn’t have a lot to share even as an “ordinary” walker. But being the first human to reach the North Pole, South Pole and the summit of Mount Everest — the “Three Poles Challenge” — on foot does give him a certain authority. 

However, I do believe that the revelations he experiences are available to those of us who only trudge around the block. “And this is precisely the secret held by all those who go by foot,” he says. “Life is prolonged when you walk. Walking expands time rather than collapses it.” 

(A diagram of the South Geographic Pole, South Magnetic Pole, South Geomagnetic Pole, and the South Pole of Inaccessibility. Courtesy Wikipedia.) 

A Pedestrian at Heart

A Pedestrian at Heart

Comments 0 Comment

I pulled up at the light, heart pounding. I’d missed the turn-off for Rock Creek Parkway and now was in some sort of endless correction loop, counting the one-two-three-four-five-six — sixth! — exit of the roundabout, which would take me, after more twists and turns, to the parkway entrance.

As I waited at the light, I stared longingly at the pedestrians. They were mostly young (this was a university area), bopping along with backpacks tossed carelessly across their shoulders, chatting as they crossed at the light. How I longed to be one of them! 

Instead, I waited for the light to turn green, then put the car in first and made my way (eventually, after a hair-raising U-turn) onto the parkway. Yes, I reached my destination … but at a price.

I’ll always be a pedestrian at heart. 

(Hoofing it through an urban center.)

In Praise of Following

In Praise of Following

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday’s walk was a blur of twists and turns. I had no idea where I was going, where I’d been. 

I could afford to be lackadaisical because I was walking with a friend who lives in those parts and knows the paths like the back of her hand. She led the way as we strolled down one trail and then another, past a daycare, a park, and pickle ball courts (my first time to witness the sport). 

While such walking doesn’t expand the mental mapping capacities, it can be lovely to turn off the piloting function, to be led, to follow. 

(Signs in Sintra, Portugal, where my mental mapping switch was most definitely turned to “on.”)

Royal Lake

Royal Lake

Comments 0 Comment

This week, the fall colors lured us out, and Claire and Rory and I (well, Rory was being worn by her mama) hiked around Royal Lake, only 30 minutes from here but a place I’d never seen. 

What a discovery! The two-mile trail winds through woods and open meadow and skirts a small dam. We saw ducks and geese in the lake and turtles sunning themselves on a log. 

And then there were the breathtaking colors: The brilliant scarlet of the maples, the glow-from-within orange of the American beech and the sunny yellows of the tulip tree. 

We had a flurry of excitement at the end of our walk, including a car that wouldn’t start. But what lingers in my mind now is the beauty of the stroll … and of the company. 

Library in the Forest

Library in the Forest

Comments 0 Comment

I see them everywhere these days, around the ‘hood and across this land. Along a street or in the woods. Little Free Libraries, they’re called, and what an excellent idea they are: a way to share books, to offer them gratis, to provide a new home for books that need one. (I can imagine the volumes waving their arms, shouting “take me”!)

Several of my walking routes have little free libraries along the way, but this one seems most ethereal and unlikely, situated as it is along a woods trail that sees fewer walkers than most. For that reason I’ve found at least one gem in its reaches. 

Yesterday, no such luck, but it was fun to look, and to savor the very idea of a library in the forest.