One Year: Rock Island Spur

This week I passed one full year on the road to Miami - I started tracking my steps on October 1, 2021. That first month I only walked a little over 9,000 steps per month, but 12 months in I am walking over 10,000 steps everyday (181 days in a row now,) and my average steps per day for year one were over 11,250. I have walked over 2,050 miles total. My goal is to reach Miami by June 28 next year, but I am currently nine days ahead of that pace and have been cutting off two to three days every month, so it is possible I will arrive as early as end of May.

I am walking in western Missouri on the Rock Island Spur, a walking path that used to be part of the Rock Island Line railroad. Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton both sang about the Rock Island Line, but I did not know until this week that it was a real thing once upon a time and not just a song.

The spur is part of the American Discovery Trail, which I also just learned about, and which crosses the country from Drakes Bay in California to Cape Henlopen in Delaware, all on non-motorized routes (so they say, but "non-motorized routes" seems to mean rural roads in many cases.) The trail goes from the Pacific Ocean to Denver, then splits into a northern route that goes through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana and a southern route that passes through Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. The two routes meet at Cincinnati, Ohio, and a single trail from there leads to the Atlantic Ocean in Delaware. The Rock Island Spur is part of that southern route.

Had I known about the American Discovery trail, I might have followed that instead of just using Google Maps, although maybe not because the northern route is 4,834 miles, and the southern route is 5,057 miles, whereas my route is just under 3,500. You pay a price for not walking along busy roads.

I may do it anyway once I get to Miami. I plan to take a month off, take a bus to Key West, eat a cheeseburger in paradise, and drink some margaritas (apologies if I mentioned this plan earlier, don't remember.) After that, I can transport myself  to Delaware and start walking the northern route, since I am already walking part of the southern route.. I imagine a somewhat reduced level of dedication, but who knows? The path I am taking crosses the northern American Discovery Trail route at Omaha - goes over the Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge in fact - but mostly it goes through states I will not visit on the current trip.

Arlo may never know he spent half his life walking back and forth across the country.