The Long Walk
In 1980 while visiting friends in Fort Collins (the Dunn's and Mosiman's) we
visited a pioneer museum. One display featured a pair of woman's
shoes. They looked like some kind of torture devices. I figured if
someone could walk across country in those, I should be able to do it in a nice
pair of Nike's. For years I thought of walking from Seattle to Iowa.
I didn't want to go backpacking or go camping -- just walk and spend the nights
in motels. By 1999 I had given up on the idea of moving to Iowa, but still
wanted this long cross-country trek. I decided I would just take a month
off work, walk out my front door and head towards San Francisco -- I didn't
expect to make it that far, but just a walk down the coast. As
August 2000 approached other things I wanted to do started chipping away
at my plans for a 4 week walk. By April I was down to about 10 days of
"free time" during my month off.
I figured if I walked a nice pace of 3 miles per hour that I could make about
25 miles a day. The first day would put me somewhere near Tukwila or
SeaTac airport. (Yuk!) Jack wanted to make sure I got off to a
good start, so we decided that he would drive me to just north of Astoria,
Oregon and he would be my support van for the first few days of my journey....
Click on the moving cartoon to go to that page.
