May

This woman is named May

A short post, since I posted two days ago:

I started the month of May in Lame Deer, Montana, and ended in Whitewood, South Dakota, 186 miles down the road.

I walked just over 12,000 steps per day for the month, 372,000 total, the most of any month so far. I hit at least 10,000 steps every day in May, 57 days in a row now, and 123 out of the last 124.

My steps have gone down a little the last couple of weeks as I settled into only two longer walks a day versus the three I used to do. Two walks still gets me to 11,000 steps or more most days, but not 12,000 to 14,000 like I was doing for a while. One morning and one evening walk gives me a long break during the day, seems to have given my feet a little rest, and should be helpful during the next few months when it gets hot in the afternoon.

I have travelled 1,308 miles so far, over 2.6 million steps.

Into South Dakota

South Dakota has a place in my family's history: it is the place Jackie and I went on our first date, or at least that's what I say. It is actually the first thing we agreed to do together, but because some time passed between our agreeing to go and the evening we drove to the airport, we did a couple of things together in between.

My walk will take me near the places we visited on that weekend in 1992 right before my 35th birthday. We landed in Rapid City; stayed in Custer; saw Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse; drove through Custer State Park chasing buffalo; toured Jewel Cave National Monument; went to the Badlands; and visited Mystic, South Dakota, a supposed ghost town that didn't consist of any buildings or anything at all as far as we could see, but I sang Van Morrison as we drove there, so there was that.

Mount Rushmore was kind of low key, but I liked it. You could walk up close pretty easily, and it is just an unusual monument - not huge, but still impressive. However, when we took the boys back in the early 2000s, I was much less impressed. They had built a whole sort of Disneyland Main Street leading up to it, and you had to walk through all that to get to the monument. It was expensive to visit, more crowded, and more fuss than seemed justified.

 My total journey through South Dakota will consist of 225 miles, more than five weeks of walking. Right now I am close to a town called St. Onge.  Next week, I will pass Sturgis, of motorcycle rally and Covid super-spreader fame, and then Rapid City the next week. After Rapid City, it's less-populated areas all the way to Nebraska sometime early in July.

Another geography lesson for me: I think of South Dakota as part of the Great White American north, along with Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho at least, and I'm sure it gets cold there, but today I realized that the norther border of South Dakota and the southern border of Washington are about the same latitude, so South Dakota is as far south as most of Oregon, which I never think of as far north. In fact, temperatures in Rapid City, SD and even Bismarck, North Dakota hit the 80s today, which we have not seen even once this year.

I am the one living in the far north, north of even several of Canada's larger cities. I need to get used to that.

Welcome to Wyoming

In the last two days, I passed 2.5 million steps, passed through Alzada, the last town in Montana on my route, and made it across the Wyoming border.

I entered Montana with three days left in January, crossing at high elevations with freezing temperatures, and walked about 1,364,000 steps, or 682 miles, before finally leaving today, with temperatures in the low sixties. On an average Montana day, I covered 11,700 steps, a little short of six miles. More than half of my walking so far has been in Montana, and that amounts to almost twenty percent of the full trek to Miami.

I can tell you three places I have visited in Wyoming: Yellowstone Park, The Grand Tetons, and Devil's Tower, which is the big rock in the picture here. I think the old legend is that seven sisters were chased here by a bear, and the ground rose up to save them and tossed them into the sky, where they became the Pleiades. The bear clawed at the rock trying to climb, and you can see his claw marks on the tower, but he could not get them. At least I think that's the legend.

We visited Devil's Tower on our Lewis and Clark trip with the boys nearly twenty years ago - a little detour, because Lewis and Clark never visited Devil's Tower. We stayed at a KOA very near the tower, and every night of the year they showed Close Encounters of the Third Kind, projected onto the side of a building at an outdoor theater. I remember that Lucas asked me during the movie, when Devil's Tower was onscreen, "Where is that place?" and I pointed up and to the right in front of us to the actual tower, which was visible from our seats. That was the most memorable thing I will ever do at a KOA.

I will pass through Wyoming, not very near to Devil's Tower, in less than one week. My route goes about twenty miles through the very northeast corner of the state, then on to South Dakota, following highway 212, as I have since back at Crow Agency about four weeks ago. The only named place I will pass is in Wyoming is called Colony. Google claims Colony, Wyoming is a "populated place," but photos on Google maps make it look more like an unpopulated place with a business that appears to be mineral extraction of some sort.

Where we're going in South Dakota seems like it's bustling with activity compared to where we've been, so that's something to look forward to.
 

Last Stop in Montana

Now is a good time to point out that in March I wrote a post titled "The Supreme Court Is Not Legitimate." I stand by that assessment.

The picture here is one of several on the Internet of Boyes, Montana, which I reached this week. Not all of Boyes looks as rundown as the building pictured here, but I like the picture, so I used it.

Boyes is an unincorporated community, and Wikipedia does not give any population, but it has a post office, and Google shows a few buildings there, including what look to be a couple of houses.

More importantly, Boyes is just about one week's walk away from the Wyoming border, so next week I can write a little retrospective on Montana and move on to Wyoming.

Yay.

Walking is the same as ever, hitting at least 10,000 steps every day, averaging 12,000 per day, clicking off the miles.
 

Getting Close to Being Near to Leaving Montana

Arlo, my walking buddy

Susan suggested that I post a picture of Arlo, which is appropriate because Arlo goes on almost all of my walks with me. Susan also told me that I could walk as far as I want with Arlo, even though he is kind of small, because I would wear out before he would. I have not tested this to its limits, but so far it appears to be correct. He has no problem keeping up with me.

I decided to change my walking goals a little bit, now that I have more than seven months of experience. First, I will try to walk at least 10,000 steps every day, which I have been doing anyway,  rather than just averaging 10,000 steps per day, which was my original goal. In the last 100 days, I have only missed 10.000 steps once.

Second, I want to average 11,000 steps for the whole trip and finish in 636 days or less, rather than the original 700-day goal. That should be pretty easy - I have averaged 11,600 steps this year. I am behind the 11,000 steps pace for the whole trip because of my slow start last year, but I should be able to catch up within the next few months.

I am less than 25 miles from Broadus, Montana, and less than 90 miles from the Wyoming border. As I write this, I realize that leaving Montana feels like a huge milestone. It's a nice enough place, but I'm tired of writing about being here.

A few random notes:

• I bought two nice pairs of walking shoes yesterday. Hopefully they will be good for my feet.
• I passed 1,167 miles today, so one-third of the way to Miami after more than seven months.
• Right around Broadus, I turn and start to walk much more south as well as continuing east. Until now, I have been walking toward New York City, which to my surprise is at about the same latitude as Eureka, California. The East Coast is farther south than the West Coast, more than I knew. Did you know that all of Florida is south of all of California? It's true.
• When I plug Cape Flattery to Miami into Google Maps now, it gives me a different route than it used to. It would have me in the middle of Wyoming now, a few hundred miles south of where I imagine myself to be. The new route would get me to Miami two hours quicker. I could jump to the new path, of course, but I prefer to stick to the path I have already travelled. I just tell Google I want to go to Broadus on the way, and we're back on track.

Below is a photo essay of the mushrooms I saw on one walk, and a look at the extent of my knowledge of wild mushrooms.

This is a morel. You can eat it.

This is not a morel and so may be deadly poisonous. Don't take a chance. Don't eat it.

Also may be deadly poisonous. Don't try it.

Same.

Same.

Same.

Same.

This is a rabbit. You can eat it if you want.

I definitely would not try this one.