New Year's Eve

 

For the month of December, I took just over 310,000 steps, so I hit my goal of 10,000 steps average per day for the first time in three months (I was short 30,000 steps in October and 40,000 in November.) That puts me 425 miles from where I started, near Rocklyn, Washington, pushing toward Spokane and the Idaho border, another 120,000 steps away.

I need to make up those 70,000 steps from the previous months. In December, I came up very short on six different days and lost over 20,000 steps, but I made those up on the other days, so if I can avoid bad days, I know I can make up ground.

To recap briefly, I started on the West Coast at Cape Flattery, WA, crossed the north edge of the Olympic Peninsula, took a ferry to Whidbey Island and walked across the island to another ferry to Edmonds, then took Highway 2 from Everett east across the Cascades, down to and across the Columbia River, and am now proceeding across Eastern Washington mostly along Highway 2.

Despite being behind on steps, I am happy with my progress. I have walked a long way, and December was my best month by 30,000 steps despite the holidays, and despite snow and temperatures in the twenties the last few days.

Since I retired, I have felt that even though I have things to do, I lack any major goals that might amount to a sense of purpose, but I am realizing that this walking, and writing about it, has become something of a purpose. Every day I start with a goal of taking at least three walks and getting those steps up, and every week I track where I am on the map and think about what I will write. It is not a huge thing, but it is something.

The last two years have not been the greatest because of COVID, and 2022 will not get off to a great start, but 2021 was better than 2020, and since the bar set by 2021 is still very low, 2022 has a decent chance to be better.

I hope everyone has a great new year.

Merry Christmas

 

Steamboat Rock

Both boys are home this year. I am not sure that will be a regular thing in the future, so we'll enjoy it while we can.

Walking is going well. I am writing mid-day for a change, but as of now I have taken over 5,000 steps today and 226,900 for the month versus a goal of 230,000 by end of day, so I am right on track. Before I started trying to take 10,000 steps per day toward Miami back on October 1, the most steps I took all year in one month was 214,000 in August, so I passed that mark yesterday, with nine days left in December. The next monthly mark is to pass the 279,000 steps I took in October, which should happen next Tuesday.

766,000 steps to date equate to 383 miles, which puts me in Hartline, Washington, a place I did not know existed as of this morning. I passed Coulee City twenty miles back, which I know I have been to more than once, because more than once I have driven past Steamboat Rock, a rock which looks a bit like a steamboat rising from the ground, and that means I drove between Coulee City and the Grand Coulee Dam.

A little geography: A coulee is a ravine, and the Grand Coulee Dam is at the north end of a large ravine called the Grand Coulee. So it is the Coulee which is the grand item in Grand Coulee Dam, not the dam, although the dam is quite large.

Past Coulee City, I do not recognize the towns until close to Spokane, and I may have never been this way. I only have 220,000 steps or so left in Washington State, and I am already looking past Idaho and on to Montana, which will take about 1.4 million steps to cross. The good news is that once I cross Montana, I will be close to halfway across the US west to east.

If you are reading this, Merry Christmas, and if you are not, Merry Christmas anyway.

Walk Update, December 15, 2021

I have made it past Wenatchee, which means down out of the Cascades to the Columbia River. At Wenatchee I went across the river and east into parts of Washington where the towns are small and far apart. The last town I passed is Waterville, WA, about ten miles back. Twenty miles ahead is Coulee City (not quite the site of Coulee Dam), which I have been to, but beyond that, I do not think that I have ever travelled this route.

I believe it was our first full year in Washington, 1996, when we visited Wenatchee for the first time. We planned a three-day driving loop that took us east on Highway 20, the farthest-north major Washington road across the Cascades, then south to Wenatchee to catch Highway 2 west and back home. It turns out that loop is one that websites will recommend as a great driving tour, but we did not know that at the time. We just wanted to see the state.

It has been a long time. Lucas was less than one year old at the time; now he's 26. I think we stayed in Winthrop, a town with an Old West motif on Highway 20, then in Wenatchee. I remember finding a steakhouse in Wenatchee based on a recommendation. I also remember that the snow on the pass on Highway 20 was at least ten feet high on Memorial Day weekend, a real you're-not-in-California-anymore moment. The highway had just been opened after being closed all winter. It was a really nice weekend trip. I'm sure of that much.

A few details on the full route:

I am walking Highway 2 almost all the way across Washington, from Everett on the Puget Sound to Spokane near the Idaho border. From there, I walk on or near I-90 across the narrow part of Idaho, almost all the way west to east across Montana, through a little corner of Wyoming on to Rapid City South Dakota, then to Omaha, Kansas City, Memphis, Montgomery, Tallahassee, and Miami.

I was going to change my goal a bit, to walk to Key Largo, because Miami is not quite at the southern tip of Florida. However, Google Maps says you can't walk to the keys, so Miami is still it.

 

Another Walking Update

A walking update, because I have not been watching a lot of television lately, and I have not been inspired to watch The Empire Strikes Back yet, but I have been walking.

I posted six days ago, and in the six days since, I have walked 68,000 steps. For the first time, I am walking more than my goal of 10,000 steps per day. This actually starts twelve days ago, the day after I got back from a wedding in Colorado, as I have walked 126,000 steps in those twelve days.

I am getting into a groove.

My formula is to take the dog for a walk in the morning, walk with my brother (and the dog) at night, and then get a couple thousand more steps in by stretching out the morning walk, going to Costco or Walmart, or taking a third walk.

The 570,000 steps I have stepped since October 1 put me just past Leavenworth, Washington, still in the mountains, but well on the way down the eastern slopes. I went to a Christmas lighting ceremony in Leavenworth once, around this time of year. The picture above is of one of those ceremonies, but it was not taken by me, and probably was a different year. It looks about the same though.

I remember that there were lots of people, and that it was cold - maybe 15 or 20 degrees, really cold. We went inside some to keep warm, but we froze enough that we slunk back to the bus about 45 minutes early to thaw out, only to find that about half the people on the bus were there ahead of us.

That's a nice reminder that I'm glad that I am walking across the US in the comfort of my own neighborhood rather than actually walking across the US. If I ever do decide to walk all the way from Cape Flattery to Miami, I'm going to hole up in an Airbnb for the winter. Not that I will ever decide to do such a thing.

The next town of any size is Cashmere, which is touted as the geographic center of Washington, although it is well over halfway to Idaho from Cape Flattery, my starting point on the Olympic Peninsula. This appears to be because Cape Flattery sticks out farther West than the rest of Washington.

Despite my twelve days of progress, I am almost 70,000 steps short of where I should be by now. Much more walking to do still.