(Internet photo)
I have
nurtured, for many years, a fascination with walking. And not just walking, but
long-distance walking, like, to another town. This is the woman who will just
come back tomorrow if there isn’t an empty parking spot right in front of our
Main Street drug store.
My
fascination with long-distance walking is specifically centered on taking a
walking holiday in England. That’s what they call it there - a walking holiday –
which figures largely in my fascination, frankly. Unlike the U.S., where walking is for fitness
and for getting from the parking lot to the mall, the English have long embraced
walking for the sake of walking and there are miles and miles of public paths
across the country. I long to traipse across the countryside over English
stiles, through English gates and across English pastures past English cows. I
imagine walking through little villages, past thatched cottages and cathedrals,
stopping at pubs and inns that have catered to walkers for decades. A walking
holiday in England has been on my bucket list since it was just called a “Things
I Would Like to Do Someday” list.
Besides the obvious
challenges of expense and vacation time from work, there are the tiny little
snags of being in ridiculously bad shape and being pretty much accustomed to
avoiding walking whenever possible.
A friend
invited me to join her group of friends for a day hike into the Salmon River
mountains. I was all set and planning my lunch until I started thinking of all
the walking a hikes entails. Lots of it. In fact, it’s practically all walking.
I imagined the merry group of hikers stepping gingerly over my unconscious body
on their way back down the trail. I bowed out of that excursion with promises
to join them when I turn into a new person. I mean, when I’m in better shape.
So I decided
to get back into walking every day and get this couch potato business behind
me. The first day out, I came back home feeling all winded, successful and sort
of athletic with flushed face. Then I realized I’d been gone exactly 17
minutes.
I have a
little ways to go before I can tackle 10 miles a day across England unless I plan
to be buried on foreign soil. That’s OK, though, because it will also take me a
while to build up a travel fund and some vacation time. Let the training and saving
and building up begin!
(Internet photo)
