American Discovery Trail: Past Marshalltown, Iowa

Apparently Marshalltown has tornadoes

Between, bridge, laziness, and my hip injury, I have found ways to bring my average steps per day down below 10,000 per day since the beginning of my walk. There is a chance I will get it back to 10,000 before the end of the month, but I doubt I will make it. These days are cold, wet and depressing, not entirely conducive to walking long distances.

A few months ago, I abandoned my original method of only counting the days that I can walk without some activity interfering, and I began counting every day. It's just easier, no manual adjustments on my spreadsheet to the step totals on my phone for days when I am on the road or playing bridge. However, this too has dragged down my average day, as some bridge days I only get a couple thousand steps in.

I will have to adjust my walking.

On the better side, I am now more than halfway across Iowa, with 240 miles left. This is good because Iowa is the last state before Nebraska, and somewhere in Nebraska, I will hit the halfway point of my trek.

This is how you make it across the country: set little goals for yourself all along the way.

They also have this in Marshalltown

This sculpture is called "Echo."

 

American Discovery Trail: What A Drag It Is Getting Old

On the good side, I passed four million steps this week, and I am just a couple of days away from Marshalltown, Iowa, the endpoint of the 29th trail segment. Also, today I took a nice long morning walk, and I will reach 10,000 steps for the day.

On the bad side, I hurt my left hip more than a month ago, doing nothing, and it is still not right. My steps per day since the beginning of this walk are down to 10,043, and it will be a struggle to keep them above 10,000 with a bridge tournament and the holidays coming.

Today, I looked up people from Iowa. The most famous, of course, is James T. Kirk, although a) he has not been born yet, and b) he is a fictional character. Still, he is the only person I could name, without looking it up, who was - will be - born in Iowa.

First person on the Internet list is Herbert Hoover. Second name is Otto Frederick Rohwedder, inventor of the sliced bread machine. Nice accomplishment, but still, it's kind of sad that he is second. There are some other famous names - Johnny Carson, John Wayne. Actually, it drops off from there. For comparison, I looked up Washington. We have Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Bing Crosby, Kurt Cobain, John Elway, Jimmy Hendrix, Quincy Jones, Gary Larson, and that's just on the first page. Iowa has Ron Livingston from Office Space; he might be the coolest real person born in Iowa.

I am trying to extend my walks again, but staying on level ground, still taking it easy. I am curious to see how long my hip will take to heal, like it's a science experiment. This whole walking thing would have been easier if I could have done it a couple of decades ago.