Montana

 

I wanted to post a picture of Brokeback Mountain, the mountain, so I searched Google images for it, and all I got was pictures like this one, so I'm guessing that Brokeback Mountain is a fictional place. It was going to represent Montana. Now these two do.

In any case, I have now walked 1,156,000 steps, or 578 miles, since I started keeping track last October, and that puts me a few miles past the border between Idaho and Montana. I just walked over Cooper Pass, Montana, which has an elevation of 5,791 feet, so I suspect that the weather is very cold and maybe the roads are closed for the season, but, you know, I'm good.

I have been through Butte, Bozeman, and Billings Montana a few times, because they are all on I-90, and I I know a story about Butte, but my walking path will not take me very near either Butte of Bozeman, though I will meet up with I-90 at Billings. What all that means is that I will cross Montana through a lot of towns that I have never been to and do not know anything about, so my trip across Montana will mostly be a story of numbers - how many steps I took this month, what milestones I am approaching, how far to Wyoming. The same was true of Idaho, except one post I got there, another I was more than halfway across, and the next I was in Montana.

I passed 500,000 steps in the middle of Washington, and one million after I entered Idaho. I will pass 1.5 million, two million (1,000 miles!), and 2.5 million steps all while I'm in Montana. I will be in the state until the middle of June. Once I get to Wyoming (and on to South Dakota two or three days later), it will be more interesting to track my progress by the states I walk through.

Perhaps I will write a post about why we need a new constitution. Mitch McConnell broke the current one.

Vacation

 

Siletz Bay, Oregon

Jackie and I went for a short vacation along the coast of Oregon, which is really amazing, and we had a great trip. Just got back yesterday.

I knew that this vacation would make it a challenge to keep up my 10,000 steps each day, and sure enough, my streak I had going since Christmas ended at 27 days, though not for the reason I thought it would.

The first couple of days I did OK, getting just over 10,000 steps day one, then 14,500 the next day, and I was feeling confident. Then in the morning on day three I realized that I had left all of my daily pills at home and had not taken any medicine for two days. The one that really gets to me is Synthroid, which regulates my metabolism in place of my missing thyroid, which was removed eleven or so years ago due to cancer. Without Synthroid, my body slows down and my energy fades, so we cut our trip short, not right away but one day later, and for a couple of days I only walked a few thousand steps.

These kinds of things are going to happen, which is why I need to build up a reserve of steps. In fact though, looking at just this month, I am still more than 20,000 steps ahead of my target pace even after the trip, and I have walked farther in 24 days than I did in all of November. Now that I am home and have taken my meds for a couple of days, I am back on course. I was going to make up any deficit from vacation, but I think I'll skip that and be happy with where things are.

The picture above, by the way, is the view from our Hotel Room in Lincoln City, Oregon. We could see lots of birds and several seals (or maybe sea otters) from our balcony, and I think that some of each are captured in this photo, although I cannot tell you which is which.

My steps put me near Osburn, Idaho, well more than halfway across the state. The map tells me that it is only 17 miles to Cooper Pass in Montana, which means I will get there in four days at the latest. I like crossing a state quickly. Montana is going to be a grind.

Milestones

This week I hit a couple of milestones in my walking:

I finally made it out of Washington, into Idaho.

I reached one million steps since I started.

The route laid out by Google Maps took me along Highway 2 all the way from the Puget Sound to Spokane, near the Idaho border, with only a few small detours and shortcuts. But at Spokane, Highway 2 turns North before turning East again into Idaho, then stays close to Canada all the way across to Upper Michigan, where it seems to end at the bridge between Upper and Lower Michigan. We drove at least part of that route on the Lewis and Clark trip years ago, in Montana and North Dakota. However, as I am walking to Miami, and that route goes too far north, we are leaving Highway 2 behind.

From Spokane and all the way across Idaho and Montana, the walking follows close to the path of I-90, which runs all the way from Seattle to Boston. However, mostly the path stays a little north of I-90, I suppose because I-90 is a freeway and an interstate, so you don't want to actually walk on it.

After three and a half months crossing Washington, I should get through Idaho by the end of the month, as it's less than 100 miles to the Montana border. 

One million steps in out of seven million total, the goal still seems realistic. In the last fourteen days, I have caught up a quarter of the steps I missed in October and November. We have had some warmer days this last week, and it is easier to get plenty of steps in when the weather is good, so I anticipate that I can make good progress as we move into spring and summer.

The biggest potential obstacles I can see are if my feet or legs break down, or perhaps an illness or medical issue sidelines me for a long period. My body just needs to hold out for another six million steps.

Friends From Long, Long Ago

 

Me, Inez, Mark, Jacqueline, Ranya?

Two friends I met in Europe long ago, and lost touch with long ago, contacted me in 2021 through LinkedIn.

The first was a German woman I met in Paris in 1979, when I was 22 and she was 20. We lived in the same boarding house for a few weeks, then kept in touch via letters, then I visited her in Germany in 1982. We tried to stay in touch after that, but it was hard back in the day when letters and long-distance international calls were all we had.

She contacted me through LinkedIn. Her name is more common than mine, and I did not know if hers had changed, but there are only so many Dennis Stambaughs in the world, so she found me. Since she got in touch in July, we have sent messages maybe once a month and caught up some.

The other person was an American I met in 1982 in Florence, where we took Italian class together. I actually contacted him because I saw that he had looked at my LinkedIn profile (his name is very common, so I would never have found him otherwise. I tried over the years.) We ended up speaking for about an hour, and he sent me some photos of us in Italy. He lived in Italy for several years and married an Italian woman before moving back to Virginia. He invented a product and started a company and has had an interesting life.

Problem is, I can tell from some of his LinkedIn posts that he's a Trumper, so I am not sure I want to have anything to do with him. So sad. Those were good times, and it's kind of amazing to hear from him now. However, the Trump thing is really disappointing. Gone over to the dark side he has.

I should send him a note. Maybe he can help me remember that Greek girl's name in the photo. There is more to life than politics, I suppose.

This month, this year, I have walked 78,000 steps, which is 8,000 over my goal. I reached at least 10,000 steps each of the last 13 consecutive days. Altogether I have accumulated over 928,000 steps and walked 464 miles, which puts me a few miles short of Spokane. I should be in Idaho already, but instead I will likely get there in five more days, and in seven days I will pass one million steps, so those are nice milestones coming up.

I wrote Mark a note. No response so far...