Segment 4: Washington, DC

Washington Monument

Washington, DC now joins Delaware and Maryland as places I am visiting on my virtual walk across the US but have not visited in person, at least as far as I remember. My brother says I visited DC when I was very young - he was old enough to remember, but I have no memory of it. West Virginia will be the same - I am sure I went there as a kid, because we lived close when we were in Akron, but I do not remember. After West Virginia, I have been in each of the states all the way to California except Kentucky, which will be just an 8-mile side trip out of Ohio and back.

The trail takes us north of the White House, Capitol Hill, and the Washington Monument, but they are less than one mile from Georgetown, the Washington, DC neighborhood where this segment ends by the Potomac River, so a side trip seems like a natural choice for anyone actually walking the trail.

In the 30 days I walked during July (excluding July 8), I walked just over 150 miles, and over 340,000 steps. It may be difficult to keep that pace during the winter, but five miles a day seems like a good rule of thumb. That makes the whole trip a bit less than 1,000 days, and around 11 million steps.

The next walking post may not come until late November, as the last Maryland segment of the trail is 167 miles long, which will take 33 days. I will be on vacation half of August, half of September, all of October, and three quarters of November, so I expect to finish this segment after Thanksgiving.

I will be writing vacation posts from around the country and across the world in the meantime.