A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday Copper and I stepped out before a storm. He’s become an anxious little guy these days, clamoring for company when he senses bad weather. But I thought we could make it out and back before the rain fell.

Once on the leash he pranced and pulled. As usual I made sure he had no contact with passersby. And as usual he seemed oblivious to my presence.

But once we reached Fox Mill Road and turned back for the walk home, the air had taken on that super-charged feel it has when lightning is present. The sky was dark and clouds piled up in the west. I began to wonder if we could make it home in time.

We picked up our pace, I encouraged Copper with lots of “good boys” and “let’s get home” — and eventually (in what seemed like an eternity) we made it home.

I’d like to say we dashed in just before the big drops hit the pavement. But that wasn’t the way it worked. The storm blew over. Our mad dash was for naught.

The Washington and Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) is a walker’s delight, a long skinny ribbon of asphalt through the D.C. ‘burbs. Its dimensions tell the tale: 45 miles long and 100 feet across!

“Share the trail” is the motto and the practice, and of course it is a good one. But the best way I’ve found to share the trail is to get off of it. My surface of choice is not the paved path but the horse trail that runs along beside it.

With a surface of cinders or dirt it’s easier on the joints. And it puts you even closer to the vegetation, to the sights and smells that are so vivid in high summer.

Most importantly it’s away from zooming cyclists, whose “passing on the left” grow a little old after the forty-fifth iteration.

Sometimes the horse trail runs right alongside the paved path and other times it meanders higher or lower. When there’s a bridge over a highway it doesn’t always take it.

The horse trail, in other words, has a mind of its own. It’s a placid alternative, a park within a park.