Countdown: 5 Days
Normally, when I'm taking a trip, even an international one, it takes about 35 minutes to pack. Suits, bowties, shirts, boom, boom, boom. This trip is different. Packpack, compass, mosquito spray, blister patches, hiking boots, and so forth. I'll also take my Chinese vocabulary cards, my Kindle loaded with a bunch of good books, even an old fashioned deck of cards. I started packing four days before the trip!
But, really, this is way out of my comfort zone. It is remarkable how our lives get stuck in day-to-day routines. Much of that is the comfortable zone of coasting--get up, read the paper, go to work, come home, eat, watch a little television, repeat month after month, year after year. Well, I'm determined to shake that up a little. I decided when I was about 50 (that's fifteen years ago for anyone who is counting), that I'd like to try new things every few years. So I took up the piano (still at it), cooking (until my wife said no; later we hired a marvelous personal chef), wrote some books, attempted to learn Chinese, and now this.
Life's been a little chaotic this year, and now it is time to get out of the house and try something totally different. So off I go! Starting Monday, June 29, when I arrive in London, I'll post daily about my adventures (let's hope that there is wi-fi or at least dial up in the hinterlands of northern England).
Normally, when I'm taking a trip, even an international one, it takes about 35 minutes to pack. Suits, bowties, shirts, boom, boom, boom. This trip is different. Packpack, compass, mosquito spray, blister patches, hiking boots, and so forth. I'll also take my Chinese vocabulary cards, my Kindle loaded with a bunch of good books, even an old fashioned deck of cards. I started packing four days before the trip!
But, really, this is way out of my comfort zone. It is remarkable how our lives get stuck in day-to-day routines. Much of that is the comfortable zone of coasting--get up, read the paper, go to work, come home, eat, watch a little television, repeat month after month, year after year. Well, I'm determined to shake that up a little. I decided when I was about 50 (that's fifteen years ago for anyone who is counting), that I'd like to try new things every few years. So I took up the piano (still at it), cooking (until my wife said no; later we hired a marvelous personal chef), wrote some books, attempted to learn Chinese, and now this.
Life's been a little chaotic this year, and now it is time to get out of the house and try something totally different. So off I go! Starting Monday, June 29, when I arrive in London, I'll post daily about my adventures (let's hope that there is wi-fi or at least dial up in the hinterlands of northern England).
Here's a map of my walk, starting on the west coast at a village called St. Bee's and ending on the North Sea town of Robin Hood's Bay.
I can hear the plane motors already. I've been packing for bike trips for 12 years and still don't have it down to an exact science - not to worry.
ReplyDeleteRemember, make it a FUN trip - then you will want to do another one. Nothing wrong with starting small and building up to being a marathon hiker!
Thanks, Marilyn, but why not just jump off into the deep end? Or maybe I'll just fake the whole trip, go from one small hotel to another, taking a taxi, cribbing from the guide book, faking some pastoral photos, and letting peopl back home think that I really did accomplish something. But then they'd say: wow, you walked so far, and why are you still so fat; thought you'd lose at least a couple of pounds.
ReplyDelete