paradigm shifts

The walk, when it starts again in a few weeks, will be undergoing some changes. Some of these will seem obvious to sideline commentators; some might be unexpected.

1. The primary goal is now to get the walk done, preferably on or before my 40th birthday (August 31 this year). This will mean moving rapidly, lingering only a minimal amount of time in each place I visit, and sacrificing the chance to sweep through large population centers, which had never been a primary goal, anyway. Had I wanted to sweep through the largest possible range of religions, I would have continued down the west coast, ending my journey somewhere in the cauldron of southern California. That would have been a worthwhile trip, but it would have netted me insights exclusively from the west coast, and wouldn't have felt like much of a cross-section of the country (sorry: that's my east coast prejudice talking).

2. Inspired by BJ Hill's example, I'm going to invite people to come to me, to meet me as I'm walking. Hill did this to excellent effect; it allowed him to maintain a steady pace. The immediate corollary is that, in order to attract people to me wherever I am, I'll be needing signage (something that many commenters had recommended before, during the walk's prep stages). I'm working on that.

3. I'm opening myself to the prospect of speaking for pay. This feels dirty, but if I take the hated Facebook and make it work for me by using its event-organizing features, I can create events at which I request donations. If someone on site is willing to aid me as a volunteer event organizer-- locking down the event's location and gathering people for the event-- I'll happily give 50% of the donations to that person. Such events might also be an opportunity to hawk my book on the road-- something I haven't done up to now, mainly because I have no head for business and suck at marketing. (I'm one of those people who felt filthy while writing college admission essays about myself. I've always hated the notion of selling myself, which seems as nasty as it sounds.)

Speaking for pay may, on occasion, include open-mike nights at local bars, if people can stand a combination of raunchiness and irreverent religious humor.

4. I'm also planning to follow readers' advice to slap audio up on the blog. With a laptop at my side, this ought to be much easier to do. Be aware, though, that some people might balk at being heard. If I interview such people, I'll have little choice but to transcribe the conversation instead of offering you the audio.

5. During the first three months of my walk, I was at great pains to avoid trouble with the law. This often meant that I avoided actions performed by other trans-America walkers, such as sleeping illegally in parks, camping on someone's private property without their knowledge, camping beside the freeway (OK, I did do this once, but it was more like a 90-minute nap than an attempt at camping), and so on. The result was predictable: my walk became very expensive. When I did camp, it was almost always at a paying campground-- a state or national park. That ran me anywhere from $8 to $16 per night. If I didn't have any CouchSurfing dates, I dropped into a motel, and occasionally into a bona fide hotel. These are major cash drains, even when the stay is a comparatively cheap $45 per night.

I'm going to spend the next (and, we hope, final) part of the walk avoiding hotels and motels as assiduously as possible. This may mean doing something illegal, like sleeping by the roadside or in woods that belong to somebody. I don't really want to do this, but don't seem to have much choice.

Digression: thinking about my own walk prompts me to think about long-distance walking in general. It seems to be something of a fad at the moment, or it might be an incipient trend. Whether it's a fad or a trend, long-distance walking isn't particularly safe. I've walked along roads with almost no shoulder, forcing me to do a deadly dance with traffic while (1) being fat, and (2) carrying a heavy backpack-- two factors not conducive to nimbleness. Ironically, traffic-heavy I-84, on the south side of the Columbia River, has been safer than many smaller roads because of its wide shoulders. Then again, I-84's shoulders have shrunk to nearly nothing when crossing bridges or rounding cliffs, sometimes forcing me to chug along at a slow jog to minimize my time on the dangerous patches. Even the freeways have their problems.

One conviction that has grown in me since my walk began is that America needs to become a far more walker-friendly country than it is. Establishing safe walking routes that lead across the country should become a priority. I'm not saying such routes should be nationally funded, but this might be something for state governments and private concerns to think about. The conviction has reached almost write-your-congressman levels in me, and it's a cause I might pursue once the walk is done. The need for walking routes along the lines of Swiss Wanderwege is paramount... though I suppose we won't see any action on this if there's no general interest.

Anyway, the above are a few paradigm shifts. I had thought about turning this walk toward more of a "religion and humor" vein, but have decided that that might be a subject for a different walk... if I survive this experience with both knees still functional.


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