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thanateThere was a conversation on twitter a few weeks back that began with walking to Mordor and my wondering why, if one could fantasy-hike anywhere, Mordor seems like a good place to go. I mean, in the grand scheme of places one might want to visit, that's not exactly high on my list. (The usual answer, of course, is that it's a there & back again sort of journey.) I find that I have a second problem with hiking Tolkein, however, which is that I'd want chutes & ladders sorts of cheats: "Rescued by Eagles! Skip 50 miles." or "Lost in Moria. No steps this week count towards your goal."
I have a bit of a fascination with the medieval idea of pilgrimage, just picking up and walking someplace because it's holy, or seems like a good idea at the time. Every so often I contemplate ideas like walking to Compostela, or walking the wall (Hadrian's)-- the only formalized long walk I know of on this continent is the Appalachian Trail, though I've met people who did various wagon train recreations-- but several years of field archaeology have taught me that I am very poorly suited to carrying a heavy pack, and that my high water needs make such a venture even more impractical. So most of my picking up and wandering cross-country has been done in cars or on trains, which gets you the scenery and destinations, but not the mileage and worn shoe leather.
I was having issues with rising blood sugar levels over the last two weeks-- coincidentally (or perhaps not) starting around the time I pulled the plug on aquarium volunteering-- which now seem to be related to not having blocks of more concentrated activity. My step counter numbers look about the same, but on Sunday morning I went out and walked about 3-1/2 miles and by Monday my metabolism seems to have reset itself. We'll see how long this lasts, but the weather remains misty and cold enough to be pleasant for two in the same body, so I've added walking to my daily schedule. And while my calves resent living half-way up a steep hill, it took all of two days for the rest of my leg muscles to start aching in that "why aren't you using me for anything?" sort of way. I did discover that nearly two hours of swinging my arms is how I make my hands swell up; it's the first irritating thing off the list of late-pregnancy symptoms I've yet had, and went away again in a few hours once I elevated them slightly. Fortunately forty-five minutes with hands mostly in pockets doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect.
(I miss living someplace where more-or-less level is an option when leaving the house. It's level on the other side of the neighborhood, though when the polar ice melts and floods Baltimore and we have waterfront property on the new Patapsco Estuary, they will be half-drowned. Of course, in such an eventuality we would need a boat to get anywhere, and on the whole none of the neighborhood is actually very high risk for anything but storm water flooding in the forseeable future. Baltimore harbor is another matter, but that's someone else's problem.)
In any case, all this raises the question: if I could walk anywhere, in the world or out of it, for which I can make up a distance, where would that be? If you're fantasy hiking you can go to the moon if you want. And if I'm (hypothetically) walking to the moon, or to somewhere across the ocean, or over the mythic plains of wherever... can I justify getting some kind of glamorous shoes to do it in?
Where would you go?
I have a bit of a fascination with the medieval idea of pilgrimage, just picking up and walking someplace because it's holy, or seems like a good idea at the time. Every so often I contemplate ideas like walking to Compostela, or walking the wall (Hadrian's)-- the only formalized long walk I know of on this continent is the Appalachian Trail, though I've met people who did various wagon train recreations-- but several years of field archaeology have taught me that I am very poorly suited to carrying a heavy pack, and that my high water needs make such a venture even more impractical. So most of my picking up and wandering cross-country has been done in cars or on trains, which gets you the scenery and destinations, but not the mileage and worn shoe leather.
I was having issues with rising blood sugar levels over the last two weeks-- coincidentally (or perhaps not) starting around the time I pulled the plug on aquarium volunteering-- which now seem to be related to not having blocks of more concentrated activity. My step counter numbers look about the same, but on Sunday morning I went out and walked about 3-1/2 miles and by Monday my metabolism seems to have reset itself. We'll see how long this lasts, but the weather remains misty and cold enough to be pleasant for two in the same body, so I've added walking to my daily schedule. And while my calves resent living half-way up a steep hill, it took all of two days for the rest of my leg muscles to start aching in that "why aren't you using me for anything?" sort of way. I did discover that nearly two hours of swinging my arms is how I make my hands swell up; it's the first irritating thing off the list of late-pregnancy symptoms I've yet had, and went away again in a few hours once I elevated them slightly. Fortunately forty-five minutes with hands mostly in pockets doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect.
(I miss living someplace where more-or-less level is an option when leaving the house. It's level on the other side of the neighborhood, though when the polar ice melts and floods Baltimore and we have waterfront property on the new Patapsco Estuary, they will be half-drowned. Of course, in such an eventuality we would need a boat to get anywhere, and on the whole none of the neighborhood is actually very high risk for anything but storm water flooding in the forseeable future. Baltimore harbor is another matter, but that's someone else's problem.)
In any case, all this raises the question: if I could walk anywhere, in the world or out of it, for which I can make up a distance, where would that be? If you're fantasy hiking you can go to the moon if you want. And if I'm (hypothetically) walking to the moon, or to somewhere across the ocean, or over the mythic plains of wherever... can I justify getting some kind of glamorous shoes to do it in?
Where would you go?
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Date: 2013-01-16 04:14 pm (UTC)This made me laugh aloud.
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