Marathon
13 years ago
Thursday, July 3, 2008
settling in for the night
I'm at the magnificent home of Gay and Ralph in Longview, and that's literally what I see when I look out their bay windows: a long view of much of the state! Their home is perched on a high hill; the Missus came to pick me up at the intersection of Nevada and Westside Highway, which means I didn't do the final 4.2 miles of the walk. "It's a dangerous road," Gay said. It's also a hilly road: the four-mile hike, most of which goes up, would have reduced me to a quivering mass of protoplasm. Gay or Ralph will be dropping me off where I was picked up very early tomorrow morning, probably around 5AM. I have a long walk ahead of me.
Dinner was a fantastic smorgasbord of chicken, pasta, homemade bread, salad, and cantaloupe. As my Kiwi buddy John was known to say after stuffing himself: I am replete. I've had the chance to meet Gay's cat, Miss Daisy (picture pending), as well as three dogs owned by Gay and Ralph's daughter and son-in-law, who live next door but are currently away. We talked a bit about my trip, and also about Gay's incredible father, Jay Ellis Ransom, a prolific author and polymath, who currently lives in The Dalles (he's a sprightly 94) and whom I might visit while I'm there. A tour of the house reveals that both Gay and Ralph are people of many talents: Gay is a "computer nerd," as her husband calls her, and Ralph makes wine from local berries (no grapes!). Both are good cooks, though Gay insists she doesn't cook that well. "Don't listen to her," said Ralph during dinner.
We touched on the topic of religion long enough for me to learn that Gay sees institutional religion as the cause of most human strife throughout history. Neither she nor her husband is religious; they politely asked me whether I wanted to "say grace," but I told them I don't stand on ceremony. I'm not one of those who feels the need to pray publicly before a meal at a restaurant (didn't Jesus warn against public prayer, anyway?), and the only time I ever say a blessing is at home with my folks, or at a formal event at our church. I'm not a particularly prayerful person, perhaps because I'm a nontheist (buy my book to find out more!).
Laundry is perking right now; sleep beckons. Gotta wake up early.
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Wednesday, July 2, 2008
mossy trees! is this part of the old-growth forest? shot was taken in the vicinity of Lewis and Clark State Park
"Walking is bad for you."
The man saw me as I was heading into the gas station convenience store; he called out to me as I was crossing the parking lot: "Where ya' headed?"
"Washington, DC," I said, even though I'm never sure why I say that. For all I know, I'll hit the Atlantic while in New England. Or maybe I'll be on the coast of Georgia.
"What for?" the man asked. He was an older gentleman, slight of build. For some reason I was reminded of Hume Cronyn in "Cocoon."
"For religious reasons," I said.
There was a long pause. Then the man asked, "Got a phone?"
"Sure," I said. I thought it might be rude to follow up with a blunt, "Why?", so I said nothing further.
The man suddenly pulled out a banana-yellow business card and handed it to me.
"Walking is bad for you," he declared. "It reduces muscle mass. Sure, you'll lose weight, but you'll also be weaker." I was ready to laugh in the man's face: I remember how beneficial walking was when I lived in Switzerland, where I had walked and done other exercises like pullups and gained muscle mass while losing weight.
"Call me up sometime and I'll give you a workout," the man said.
"Thank you!" I said with deliberate overenthusiasm. He nodded and we went our separate ways.
The business card says he's got a Bachelor of Science in Health and Physical Education from Walla Walla College. I do sense a great deal of BS about this guy, but hey-- if you're interested in learning more about his miraculous, 20 minutes-per-week exercise plan, leave a comment and I'll be happy to send you his contact info.
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dogs and Good Samaritans
I've been on the road a few hours now, and no one's barked out their window at me as they were driving by. On the contrary, I met another Good Samaritan on the street: a woman in a white Volvo drove up to me, pulled over, leaned across the passenger seat and handed me-- that's right-- a freezing can of Pepsi.
"You look like you need it," she said, smiling.
"Oh, my God, thank you!" I stammered, having long since abandoned whatever pride had kept me from accepting food and drink from strangers.
And with that, the lady drove off.
On one hand, perhaps it's not surprising to discover that, as little Anne Frank believed, people are basically good at heart. My overall experience in Washington State has been overwhelmingly positive, whether we're talking about the CouchSurfing hosts I've met or the religious institutions I've dealt with or the many random encounters I've had in stores and restaurants and on the street.
On the other hand, you've got the people who shout incoherent garbage out their windows as they drive by, and all the warnings from good folks about the need to "be careful out there"-- a testament to our pragmatic or cynical conviction that people are basically fallen.
Which is it? Are we basically good, or basically fallen? (Or are we mired in a sort of fundamental avidya, or ignorance, as Buddhists would contend?). Life doesn't provide clear, pat answers to most of our important questions, and the question of basic human goodness is among those admitting of no clear answers.
Dogs are lucky in that sense. Being pack mammals responsive to abstract notions like hierarchy and territory, dogs are born into the world wired with a sense of duty. They may be, as a result, the most Kantian of domesticated animals.
As happened when I went on a long hike in Switzerland, dogs have been barking at me all along my journey, especially when my path takes me through a suburban neighborhood or a farming area. Most of the dogs wag their tails while barking, which I take to mean they're not really serious. In one case, two dogs ran off their property to come right up to me, but I was more pissed off at the mindless owner than at the dogs themselves; they were only doing their sacred duty as members of the human pack.
I've been sitting at a place called Riverside Park while typing this entry. It's a fairly quiet place right now-- field, baseball diamond, trees, parking lots-- and I'm not even sure what city it's in. Many of the neighborhoods I've passed through have been advertising July 4th in some way or other: I've walked by innumerable fireworks booths. This neigborhood, wherever I am, is no different.
Anyway, it's time to get a-movin'. I stopped at this park because the lady's Pepsi (this state is an enormous Pepsi advertisement: almost every restaurant corrects me every time I order a Coke) gave me an excuse to rest my feet a bit, and while I might grab a snack if there's a convenience store down the street, I need to get moving.
Later.
UPDATE: I forgot to note that today, I encountered my first true hill. It was long, steep, and cruelly laid out so that, every time I thought I had reached the top, another little hill appeared before me. A bit like life, eh?
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the next few days
I'm off to Longview in the morning. The residence I'll be staying at is 14.48 miles from where I am right now. I'll be staying there a single night, then waking up extremely early (maybe 4AM) for my most brutal walk to date: a 28.56-mile walk from the Longview area to a Safeway in Woodland, where I'll be picked up and driven to a home that's actually 14-15 miles outside of Woodland (I'll be dropped off at the Safeway again the following morning; this is based on the "chase car" scenario), before moving on to Vancouver on the Fourth (as you probably realize, that's Vancouver, Washington), where I'll try to book a hotel again.
That's not how I wanted to do things, but I don't want to crash anybody's Fourth of July celebration, and I'm on schedule to arrive in Vancouver on the Fourth. It's a shame, really, because there are, according to my manager Alan, plenty of CouchSurfing hosts in Vancouver. Were I not arriving on the Fourth, I'd have no trouble staying with a CS host, but as someone averse to partying in general, I'd only be making myself uncomfortable by being the stranger at someone's shindig. I need to check on hotel availability on the Fourth, but I have to get to bed now, as it's nearly 1AM and I have to wake up at 8.
By the way, the motel I'm in is probably the best of the motels I've stayed in that are in the $40-50 range: while you do get a lot of traffic noise through the front windows, the walls are more solid than those of a typical motel, which means less sonic nonsense from the neighbors. I appreciate that.
So: Castle Rock to Longview, Longview to a point in Woodland where I'll be picked up, then Woodland to Vancouver, where I'll probably need to rest my blistery feet again for two nights. I may also have a church to stay at when I reach The Dalles, about 50 or so miles east of Portland, Oregon.
Too bad I'm already south of Vader, WA. I would have liked to pay tribute to my childhood, uh, hero.
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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
shout-out to Guy and Diane
I met Guy and Diane (pic shown earlier), a couple from Montreal who are on a road trip that includes Mount St. Helens and Rainier, while I was typing away on the BlackBerry at the pavilion at Lewis and Clark State Park. They parked their car at the pavilion parking lot, close to the park's entrance, walked up to me and asked about the registration procedure for the campsite. I told them to track down the camp host, and they must have gotten everything arranged just fine, because they ended up in the site right next to mine!
The next time I saw them was when they were cooking dinner over a roaring fire (at L and C State Park, you have to buy firewood; you're not allowed to collect deadfall because the park is in an old-growth forest area-- everything must stay). I overheard them speaking French to each other and discovered they were from Montreal; Guy teaches English and his wife is-- I forget the French term and can't quite remember the English, either-- a type of nutritionist/dietitian and body-mechanics/exercise expert.
In the morning, they invited me over for a breakfast of fresh fruit; although I don't usually eat breakfast (readers of this blog will recall the porta-john story, which discusses the dire intestinal consequences of eating breakfast after years of not doing so), I accepted the invitation and ate a nice meal while we talked over our respective plans.
Diane told me that Guy is keeping a journal about the places he's visited and the people he's met along the way (in fact, I might have seen him writing in his journal yesterday morning); before we went our separate ways, we took some pictures and exchanged contact information. Very cool couple.
I'm still not used to the Québecois accent and I stumbled a few times in conversation; we all spoke French the entire time, though I did hear Guy speaking perfectly fine English with the camp hosts earlier on (maybe Guy knew I needed the practice!), and also heard Diane speaking in English.
Bonne route, vous deux, et profitez de votre temps aux USA. Il faut s'amuser dans la vie... parfois on n'a pas le temps de faire tout ce qu'on veut. Chaque moment est précieux.
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barked at!
MapQuest failed to note that one of the roads I was on had undergone a name change, so I had to stop at an RV park and confirm I was still heading in the right direction. The lady who ran the place was very gracious despite my serious reekage (the backpack itself is beginning to acquire a stink), and I made it to the Motel 7 West in Castle Rock with no further trouble.
Except for one guy. He drove by me in one of those retro-looking Plymouth Thingamajigs and actually barked at me-- a sharp series of woofs.
In every case where someone yells out the window at me, the yeller is a guy, from his teens to his twenties. Just a reminder that we men are generally stupid creatures, prone to doing stupid things for stupid reasons or, as is often the case, for no reason at all.
I was once again limping by the time I got into my motel room ($48/night plus tax), and when I peeled off my right sock I saw a big ol' blister on my pinky toe. Gotta take care of that.
Gotta air out the tent, too-- damn. Forgot to do that last night.
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Monday, June 30, 2008
the people you meet along the way
I've had some interesting encounters along the way today. The first was while I was passing through the tiny town of Toledo: a 40-something man who was sitting on his porch called out, "Where ya' headed?"
"All the way to the east coast," I said. "Three thousand miles!"
"Good luck to ya'!" he called, smiling and nodding. I thanked him and walked on.
Several miles later, and back on South Jackson Way, I was walking past a property when a gentleman on the other side of the fence started walking my way, moving as though he had a purpose. He asked me where I was going, then produced a freezing can of Pepsi and a huge plastic cup filled with ice, just for me. You can't imagine how grateful I was for his kindness.
The man's wife came out and the three of us talked about my walk and my options for heading south and east. The Missus brought out a note pad and I wrote my blog's address on it. Before I left, I asked them to spread the word about my blog; I'm sure they will.
Thanks, you two!
A not-so-pleasant encounter occurred earlier, when I was walking past a lake park and envying the kids swimming in those cool waters. Some idiot sitting on the passenger side of a pickup that drove up from behind me yelled something that sounded like "Beggar!" but could have been much worse. I didn't hear the shout clearly, and even though I've been yelled at by random assholes on many occasions thus far, this particular incident bothered me because of its potentially racist nature.
In any case, that bit of unpleasantness was the second of today's encounters, not the third, so it won't echo long in my brain. Freshest in my memory is our Good Samaritan and his can of ice-cold Pepsi: he was clearly representative of the better side of humanity, and a far cry from a cowardly passenger in a speeding vehicle.
I'm about to leave the truckstop cafe I'm at (thanks to our Good Samaritan again for telling me about it) and do the final leg of today's 21-miler. I might have to stop another two nights after this one: my pinky toes are killing me, so I'm back to using both trekking poles to minimize the pain.
Come on, Kev... just three more hours to go...
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a quick note about comments
I've been resting my feet for the past forty minutes and am about to start up again, but before I head off I'd like to ask commenters to help me out by noting in their comments-- if it's not already obvious-- which blog posts their comments are referring to.
When I see a comment on the BlackBerry, I see only about a half-sentence of it, and cannot always tell what post it refers to because my BlackBerry's browser doesn't allow me to expand the comment for a full preview.
In cases where people leave anonymous comments, this can also be a pain because some comments aren't actually anonymous: the commenter leaves a name as part of the comment's content, but on my BlackBerry, I can't always see the name. My normal rule is to reject anonymous online comments, but for the reasons stated above, I've been lenient on that score. End result: I publish the comment, then can't find the post it's appended to.
Anyway, please try and help me out. It'd be a big help-- especially if you're responding to a post that's more than a day old-- if you could add a "re:" or a parenthetical ("This is a response to that post about treating foot odor"), to the beginning of your comment.
Thanks.
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"With the blast shield down, I can't even see! How am I supposed to fight?"
off to Castle Rock
One final charge-up and I'm off to Castle Rock, where a motel awaits me. It's a shame I'll be missing Mount St. Helens (and the town of Vader), but I might see it in the distance.
Condensation issues in the tent this morning; I did a "dry-up, wipe-down, dry-up" routine before putting it in the stuff sack. The tent probably needs to air out more; I'll do that at the motel.
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Sunday, June 29, 2008
yesterday and today
Today should have been mostly about rest and relaxation, but I "pulled an Eminem," if you will, and walked eight miles (i.e., four miles each way) to and from a restaurant called Spiffy's to have lunch. Not a great lunch, either, though it did fill the gut.
So today involved a good bit of walking along Route 12; earlier on, I did laundry and talked with the husband and wife who volunteer as "camp hosts," which seems to be a role somewhat similar to Father Paul's capacity as Guestmaster of St. Martin's Abbey. They leave, along with me, tomorrow morning, and will go to the coast to tend a lighthouse for two months, which sounds like a marvelous way to spend one's time.
The people who manage the Chevron gas station/convenience store at the intersecton of Jackson and 12 are Korean; they're the folks who told me about the restaurant I went to today. Yesterday I met a woman whose name tag simply said "Chang," and today I met a man wearing what appeared to be the very same name tag, for it also said "Chang." Korean women don't change their surnames when they marry, so perhaps the man and woman are siblings, not spouses. While it's conceivable for two Koreans with the same family name to marry, there's usually a great deal of research to be done to make sure the lovers don't also happen to be distantly related members of the same "tribe," hence the continued importance of family ledgers in Korean society.
On my way back from the resto (the heat was again brutal), I stopped at the Chevron station and bought a mess of drinks and a bag of ice (pic of Kevin's bar already uploaded) for purposes of rehydration. These days I'm not so much a hungry guy as an extremely thirsty one: I sweat out almost everything I take in.
Which brings us to yesterday, a topic I had promised to write about. Yesterday started off well with the goodbye from Dave and Ardeth (I incorrectly referred to them as "the Underwoods" previously, but Ardeth actually goes by her own surname). I walked out of Centralia, then got turned around twice-- once just before entering Chehalis (a passerby pointed me in the right direction; there had been a fork in the road) and once when I was on my way out of downtown Chehalis (which is how I met Nicole, who told me how to reach a decent resto, Kit Carson, and also told me how to get to Jackson, the road that leads to Lewis and Clark State Park, where I am now).
While on my way out of town, I passed by a rec center and baseball field; a girls' softball game was in progress, and parked across the street from the game were Bryan et al., the folks I met yesterday (pic shown previously).
"Where you headed?" Bryan called out from his truck.
"Washington, DC!" I called back, at which point I changed course and headed over to where he was parked with his buddies. I told him what I was up to, and he gave me a reply I hadn't heard before:
"That is so badass!"
High praise indeed for a plump guy on a stroll. I didn't feel I deserved such praise-- think about what our soldiers in Iraq are going through, and that'll put my own paltry effort in perspective-- but my ego didn't mind. I've never been a badass at anything.
Turned out that Bryan and Co. were waiting for friends so they could go hit the Egg Day celebration in a nearby town. I asked the group what Egg Day was all about (Dave and Ardeth had talked about it, actually, so I did know a bit of its history), and they said that this would be their very first Egg Day. I hope it went well.
The walk along Jackson was, as I wrote, brutal. Hot. Sunny. Oppressive. Every time there was a small gust of wind, I was thankful. Every time I passed under a tree shadow, I breathed a sigh of relief and dreaded the shadow's end. To think that this is the mild stuff...
So Jackson was a hard road to walk. Luckily, it had wide shoulders, so I didn't have to dodge traffic.
I did make a point of stopping to refill my Camelbak, though, and I often purchased an extra bottle of juice or tea to drink on the spot before moving on. At one gas station/convenience store, I met Cathy Davis Gibson, the store's day manager. Cathy's from Texas and has written a book of Christian spirituality teaching* called This Song, which is in part a product of her healing process after experiencing domestic violence (I didn't ask details). Another manager at her store is Korean; I saw him briefly but didn't have a chance to talk with him, so I wrote him a message in Korean and left it with Cathy.
When I finally reached the place where Jackson intersects Route 12, I stopped again, and that's where I met the female Chang and spoke with her in Korean. I told her a bit about my weight loss (possibly nearing 30 pounds now), and she told me her son was starting to fatten up. Ah, Korean moms. I hope she's not thinking of telling her son to go on a 3000-mile hike.
From that intersection to the campground entrance, it's about two miles. It would have been uneventful had there not been a bizarre accident: no one was hurt, but a flatbed carrying hay bales had rounded a curve, sending dozens of loose bales tumbling all over the road. The pick-up operation appeared to be a family effort; there was one muscular, goateed guy who sure looked and sounded like a father used to commanding his kids; there was a woman who also exuded calm efficiency and authority, but in a gentler tone that seemed a counterpoint to the man's; and then there were the kids, who seemed to range in age from twenty-something to mid-teen to younger teen.
As I walked past the mess, I asked whether the family needed any help, and one of the kids said it was all right, everything was going to be OK.
I briefly thought about taking a picture of the spill, but when one of the teens passed me, his face both grim and red with the effort of re-collecting all those errant bales and dealing with that gigantic mass of loose straw, I realized how insulting such an act would be. This was no laughing matter for a family that was, like I was at that time of day, probably racing against the sun. Farm work, about which I know a tiny bit after my experience of it in France in 1986, is always a race against time. It's not just you and the earth that are in contention: you're also quite literally striving to keep pace with the massive, ceaseless, and merciless rhythm of the entire solar system. Certain things must be done in their proper season, or your livelihood is ruined. I might joke about country music, but I have great respect for the country people who feed me.
After walking past that memorable scene, I entered the campsite, consulted the camp host about registration, set up camp, blogged a bit, watched the stars, then went to sleep still reeking from my long, sweaty day. My sleeping bag's going to need fumigation soon.
Now I have to check on tomorrow's weather, double-check the mileage to tomorrow's stopover (a motel/hotel, I believe), and write a few more emails while the BlackBerry continues to charge. Might go to sleep early tonight. That'd be a first, what with all the writing still to be done.
*As you will see in the comments to this post, Cathy wrote in to express discomfort with the term "spirituality." I have responded to her comment in a way that I hope will open up some dialogue, but have changed the term so as better to express her self-understanding.
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quick shout-out to Kelly and Denny
Kelly and Denny were the nice couple I'd met the morning I was preparing to leave Millersylvania State Park. They were walking both of Kelly's dogs, and they found the pavilion where I had laid out all my equipment and was once again charging Ye Olde BlackBerrye.
If I'm not mistaken, that trip was Denny's very first camping experience. I think they picked a perfect time to do it: the weather was pleasantly warm, there was almost no wind, and the park itself hadn't begun to fill up yet (it was Friday morning).
We talked a bit about camping, my trip across the country, the dogs (a very extroverted beagle and a Pekingese that one of the pair described as "an attention whore"), and other matters. I took the ladies' pictures and Kelly, who has a BlackBerry exactly like mine, took two of me, one of which went up on the blog.
It was fun meeting you two! I hope Denny's first experience camping will lead her to try it again. And again!
(By the way, I deleted the pic from my BlackBerry, so the way to get it is to copy and save it straight from my blog itself. Right-click on the full-size image, do a "save as," and the image is yours.)
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the pavilion where I did my covert BlackBerrying and stargazing last night
'at warn't no fifteen mile
I was wondering why yesterday's walk took so much longer than anticipated, and the answer is, partly, that it was 2.3 miles longer than I had reckoned. I normally rely on MapQuest to give me an accurate calculation of the shortest available route from place to place, and just now MQ put the shortest route at 17.3 miles, not the 15 miles I had guesstimated the other day. I'm also sure that my walking speed was significantly slower as the sun bore down, the miles wore on, and my feet began to scream. On a good day, I do about 2.7 mph with the pack on (3.2 mph unencumbered); yesterday, at a guess (maybe I should do the math and quit guessing), I was probably doing closer to 2.3 mph.
I arrived at the campground after sunset; most of the tent-pitching occurred in the dark, but that was all right: I knew what to do this time around, and actually did a better job of it, securing the footprint properly and hooking the lateral guys that give the inner tent a bit more space (see picture and compare with previous shot of my feet).
A very nice campground volunteer helped me find the hiker/biker spot; she said she'd been expecting me after I had called the campground early yesterday morning. I also met a grandmother from Montreal who was traveling with her family; she thought it would be a hoot for me to speak with her 12-year-old grandson, who might take an interest in my travels. If I see the family today, I'll be sure to talk with them.
I set up my tent and snuck out to the pavilion that sits near the entrance. There, I plugged in the BlackBerry for a partial recharge and managed to upload a single photo thanks to the poor signal: the pic of my Camelbak's O-ring coming off. It was dark and I was worried about freaking out any passersby who might see a weird glow coming from within the pavilion, so I hunkered down behind the pavilion's sink/counter to block me from the main road. While the photo was ever-so-slowly uploading to the blog, I came out from behind the counter, went in front of the pavilion, lay on one of the many picnic tables, and stared at the magnificent starscape overhead. I saw one shooting star and one satellite; the satellite was tiny and I couldn't look directly at it, but it was visible whenever I looked at a point a few degrees away from its trajectory. No one passed by while I was on the picnic table, so I spent a half-hour in relative peace as the cosmos wheeled majestically overhead.
I need to keep charging the BlackBerry; I also need to do laundry, write a prospective CouchSurfing destination or two, write my manager Alan, blog about yesterday's adventure (some of which I've already talked about), go back down the road to get some food, and keep on resting my poor feeties. Doesn't seem like a lot, but you'd be surprised how much time it all takes.
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Happy Retirement, Mom!
This past Friday was my mother's final day of work in the finance office of the National Association of Letter Carriers in Washington, DC. This week also saw her depart from her post as an executive board member ("i-sa") of the Washington Korean Women's Society, so she now joins Dad as a fellow retiree. She faces her first Monday with "nothing to do," as Dad jokingly puts it.
Of course, neither she nor Dad has nothing to do. Some major house-related projects loom on the horizon, and both parents now have time to deal with them. I'll be curious to see what new daily routines emerge as Mom and Dad find themselves together for longer periods than was ever possible before.
Enjoy the dawn of a new phase of life, Mom! I love you.
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Saturday, June 28, 2008
one ass-kicker of a walk
Although the distance isn't that great from Centralia to Lewis and Clark State Park, it's been a hellish walk thanks to the heat and all the direct sunlight (yes, Mom, I've applied lotion many times, but I just sweat it right off). Thank goodness I haven't also had to contend with major inclines!
More to come when I finally arrive at my campsite and set up camp (I got a call from the camp's office and heard that hiker/biker sites should be available in plenty; you'll recall that this is a first-come, first-serve campground, unlike Millersylvania). I'm thinking about staying there two nights; my feet are starting to ache a bit too much for my taste.
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thank you, Dave and Ardeth!
I had written a rather lengthy thank-you post to (and about) Dave and Ardeth, who so kindly hosted me for my night and morning in Centralia, but that post got sucked into the vortex of cyber-oblivion, so I'm writing this significantly shorter post to express:
(1) my apologies for the various little inconveniences I caused you (including obliging Dave to find and return my Camelbak, which had fallen somewhere during our morning tour of the town);
(2) my sincere thanks for a tasty spaghetti-and-salad dinner last night and a lovely pile of pancakes this morning;
(3) my appreciation for introducing me to Centralia as a living community and historic town; and
(4) my gratitude for introducing me to black currant tea, which could well become a new addiction.
Thanks, guys, for everything!
Kevin
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Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
ye gods! I ordered a "chocolate pie," and this is the monster that arrived
Lewis and Clark State Park?
Lewis and Clark State Park appears to be my next destination, but whether there'll be any spaces left for me is an open question. They might have hiker/biker spots, which would be nice. I have to check.
I've also got some blister action to deal with. Oy.
By the way: Deep Woods Off doesn't repel the most determined mosquitoes. Sorry, Dad and David. I guess my natural fragrance is simply too overpoweringly sexy for the little suckers.
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milestones
So I've passed the 200-mile mark for this walk, and the 27th also marked the one-month "anniversary" of the start of the walk. I left Alexandria, VA on May 26, but started walking from White Rock, BC on the 27th.
If the Underwood's bathroom scale is to be trusted (and Dave smilingly hinted that it isn't), I may also have dropped below the 270-pound mark. The scale said I was 260-something, which puts me close to my (admittedly inauspicious) weight of 255, the weight I was when I started teaching at Sookmyung Women's University. I hope eventually to get down to my 1990 weight of 200 even, which is what I was when I came back from nearly a whole calendar year in Switzerland. After the walk is over, the question will be how to maintain that weight.
If I walk 200 miles per month and assume the walk across the country will be around 3000 miles (you'll recall that the shortest route is about 2500 miles and the southward-dipping long route would be about 4000 miles), I could finish the trek in fifteen months, which would be in time for my 40th birthday. Keep your fingers and tentacles crossed.
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with the Underwoods
Dave Underwood, a peppy, athletic guy, met me not far past the county line on his bike. He was trailing a large carrier into which he very kindly placed my backpack, thereby allowing me to walk unencumbered for the final four-point-something miles to his residence in Centralia.
Dave and his wife Ardeth are an interesting couple. Dave is a Christian (Episcopalian) while Ardeth, who has a background as a Unitarian, has entered a Sufi order, but has also engaged in Buddhist and Hindu practice.
I know next to nothing about Sufism, so it was fascinating to hear about her practice and the inner life that goes along with it: much emphasis is placed, for example, on the notion of inquiry, and if I understand correctly, inquiry is a major component in a very personal spiritual journey, one that takes place with the aid of a guide (guide, not master). Ardeth also mentioned a Sufi notion I had never heard before: "polishing the rust from the heart." (I hope I phrased that correctly.) The idea here seems to have some links with contemplative/introspective practices found in other traditions; the object is to examine the source of the "rust" that obscures one's spiritual heart, and eventually to return the heart to its original, pristine, polished state, one that allows it to be a perfect reflector for the divine light.
The man who brought Sufism to America (didn't catch the name, alas) seems to have been a convergent pluralist insofar as he saw the great religious traditions as having the same fundamental focus. Would he have agreed with John Hick that that focus is "the turn from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness"? I don't know.
I was very impressed by Dave's offer to carry my bag the final few miles. He and Ardeth also prepared a lovely vegan dinner of spaghetti and salad, with rhubarb for dessert (glutton that I am, I had seconds).
Conversation lasted long after dinnertime as both spouses shared stories about their personal lives and work, their insights about Washington State and small-town life, and their wisdom about what I can expect next, depending on where I go.
And speaking of where I'm going, it's past time for me to check on what's happening next in my travels. Alan has once again lined things up superlatively and has noted that I've received more CouchSurfing offers down the line.
So off I go.
_
Friday, June 27, 2008
a brief break before slogging on
I had a very late start today, despite having gotten up around 7:30AM: I left Millersylvania State Park a little after noon! Not good when you've got a 16.6-mile walk to Centralia ahead of you, but some things needed taking care of, including a proper airing-out of the tent and fly, a proper (if somewhat clumsy) takedown of same, some time to write the entries I wrote this morning, figuring out how self-registration at the camp was supposed to work, totally emptying and repacking my pack, and MapQuesting my current park-to-Centralia route (which has been one of the most gorgeous stretches I've walked, by the way; Tilley Road is something else).
I ran out of water with no shop or resto in sight and resigned myself to a few hours of mouth-dryness, but was saved from all that when my path took me by a gas station/grocery, which is where I am now. I've just guzzled some Mountain Dew Voltage (not bad, especially when you're thirsty), filled my Camebak with a 2:1 mixture of Gatorade and water, eaten some jerky, and downed a small bag of peanut M&Ms.
My buddy Tom called me while I was in a poor-signal area on Tillet Road, but it was great to hear from him. Tom and I have known each other since 1994, when we taught together at the same awful language institute in Seoul. Tom's the guy from whom I learned the expression "dingleberry dickhead," which has come in handy a few times over the years. He's been in the States almost a week and is leaving right around the Fourth of July. Have a good rest-of-stay in St. Louis, dude.
So now I need to tend to a few emails and text messages, then hit the road pronto. My host for this evening has already(!) called to check on my progress.
_
a pic for the homies in Korea: if you're out in da boonies, rely on the Marmot!
don't fart in your sleeping bag
Good morning! It was a decent night, all in all, fueled by a sense of smug self-satisfaction from having figured the new tent out. My toiletry bag served as my pillow, and I was fine with that through the quiet, nearly windless night.
The tent's design represents an interesting solution to the classic condensation problem of the old pup tents. I'm not sure how clear this is in the interior shots I just posted, but the fly basically serves as both fly and tent: the interior layer, what I'm tempted to call "the tent itself," is little more than a standard tent floor topped by mosquito netting. In other words, you have to set up both the tent and the fly; the two parts are integral. The mosquito netting prevents condensation, and the fly, because it doesn't touch the ground, maintains breathability and circulation. Very clever, indeed.
It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic, though: when they call this a one-man tent, they mean it. The experience of sleeping in the tent reminds me of nothing so much as the night I spent inside a kapsuro (capsule hotel) in downtown Fukuoka-- the highlight of my one evening in Japan.
So now it's time to strike camp. I was lucky to catch two camp staffers who were on their way out last night; the camp's main office wasn't open, and I had wondered how I was supposed to register for the evening. They told me there was a self-registration procedure I could simply do in the morning, and because I had no car, I could set up camp in the so-called "hiker/biker section," whose entrance would be marked with a "do not enter" sign-- perfect for an introvert. Sure enough, I was all alone in the HB section, which isn't even shown on the map; all the group tents and RVs were elsewhere. Ha!
I'm fortunate, too, because I arrived on a Thursday night, which meant fewer people. As summer progresses, I imagine this sort of quasi-solitude will become less likely.
Today promises to be sunny and in the 80s. Shit. Definitely not looking forward to this, and can't even imagine what it's like in southern California and Arizona.
Oy. Gotta pack. And put on sunscreen.
_
one happy camper
The last time I was near anything resembling a hoop tent-- one of those domed, self-supporting structures that looked like a cross between an igloo and a Moon Bounce-- it was 1990 and I was camping with some Georgetown classmates at the eastern edge of the Brienzersee in Interlaken, Switzerland. For shelter, I had packed a tarp, some cord, and a groundcloth for two people (me and one other guy named Steve), as well as a foam pad and sleeping bag just for me. The girls had brought a multi-person hoop tent they had borrowed from one of their Swiss host families.
My tarp was easy to set up, largely thanks to the trees, but the girls, who insisted they needed no help, ended up creating something on the lakeshore that looked more like a melting teepee than a proud dome: the poles had ended up concave instead of convex. Katty and Jessica actually spent the night in it, too, this conical (and comical) monstrosity.
I didn't sneer at the girls, because even though I had offered to help them, I had never dealt with a hoop tent before, and felt stymied just looking at it. The tents were becoming hugely popular in the late 1980s and early 90s, but many of us, yours truly included, had stuck with the more traditional design over the years: the two-man pup tent.
What could be easier to set up than such a tent? It had an easy-to-understand rectangular footprint (these days, "footprint" means "groundsheet" or "groundcloth"), two easy-to-assemble poles for the front and back end, and six loops or grommets into which you'd hammer six of your eight or ten stakes. The remaining stakes would be for the lines that radiated from the tent's front and back, and possibly for whatever type of tent fly you had.
So I admit I was apprehensive when I saw that my folks had FedExed me a new tent based on the classic hoop tent design. Having witnessed the girls' disaster all those years ago, I was prepared to wrestle with this thing until long after dark.
But as it turned out, the tent was very easy to put together once you got past the oblique instructions, which was how I wasted ten or fifteen minutes.
The tent pole for my one-man pup tent is a huge, spidery, Y-shaped thing; you lay out your footprint, lay out the tent on top of it, then feed the long part of the Y through the loops along the tent's spine, making sure to stab the pole's end through that final grommet. After you do that, you feed the shorter branches of the Y through the loops that help define the tent's front face. Once the pole has had all three of its ends put through those grommets, the natural tension of the bent Y is what keeps the tent up.
Do that-- a process that takes less than a minute-- and you're 90% done.
The rest of the setup will be familiar to anyone who has put together an old-style pup tent: loops and lines, hammer and stakes. Add the fly to the structure, do a bit more staking, and you're good to go. I finished with plenty of daylight to spare, and was thankful that temps were in the low sixties and the wind was practically zero. It was the perfect night for a practice run, and now that I know how truly easy the setup is, I'll be even faster next time.
And on that note, I'm going to leave this wooden pavilion I'm at (it's got electric sockets so that groups can cook or do other things here; I've been recharging the poor BlackBerry even as I've been sending photos and blogging) and head off to bed.
Oh, wait: I need to give a shout-out to Mark Johnson, the construction worker whose pic I'd uploaded earlier. Mark had wanted to know what I was up to when I was passing through his work zone, so I told him. He thought the idea for the walk was sound and he wished me well. So, ladies, go take a look at Mark!
As I was on the final road to the state park (Tilley, I think), I saw a sort of general store and went in to buy some drinks, some jerky, and some carbs in the form of cookies. This is how I met Andy, a friendly motorcycle-riding customer, and Bill, the store's genial owner. Andy's wife is Mongolian and he's been to Mongolia with her; Bill impressed us both with his encyclopedic knowledge of the area's restaurants and social hotspots. Both Andy and Bill kindly wished me well, so I snapped their pics and promised to blog them, too.
Right: NOW it's time for bed!
_
and they say power doesn't grow on trees! behold the secret of my blogging ability!
the front of Old Main at SMU (admin offices, classrooms, student dining, monks' refectory)
Thursday, June 26, 2008
bees
I'm on Old State Road 99, about five miles out from the campground, and I just passed what appeared to be a downed beehive, with all the bees still milling about it. You just saw the pic of it in the previous post. Incredible, eh?
A long time ago, my buddy Sam and I used to make it our mission to destroy wasp nests. Our last and greatest mission involved a gigantic nest tucked inside the overhang of a neighbor's house. These weren't the regular wasps with their tiny, frilly little nests. No: these were German wasps-- bigger, more tactically coordinated, and superior architects to boot.
Sam had a marvelous slingshot, so he used it to fire a heavy pebble at the nest which was, in my childhood memory of the event, as huge as a jumbo-sized grapefruit.
Direct hit-- then disaster: a black cloud of German wasps came pouring out of the hole Sam had punched into the nest; we turned and ran like hell. Miraculously, we weren't stung.
Both of us knew we had to finish the job, so when we got back to the nest, Sam gave me the slingshot. You can guess what happened: direct hit, cloud of wasps, run like hell.
Being chased twice by a cloud of angry wasps is a hint that even two dense guys like us could take: time to change tactics. I don't remember which of us thought it up-- might've been Sam-- but we shifted to heavier weaponry: water balloons.
The tactic worked. We filled a mess of balloons up, bombarded that nest, and after a few hits the thing dropped from its corner with a heavy splat, just like soggy newsprint.
No Buddhists, we: elated, we charged over to the nest and stomped the crap out it, demolishing the little chambers, crushing the white-shrouded larvae, and generally ignoring what adult wasps remained. Ah, victory was sweet.
I was reminded of all that just now... but now, as an adult, what I was thinking when I passed that insectile crowd was: Thank God these are just honeybees. Had they been wasps or hornets, I would never have gotten that close to take a pic.
_
that brown thing might look like poop to you, but it's actually HONEYBEES!
the Ashok story
I was barely a mile from the SMU campus entrance when I stopped at a gas station to buy a gallon of water for my Camelbak. Inside was a friendly Indian gentleman who asked me where I had come from, so I told him my story, then mentioned I needed to get some water for my Camelbak. I found a gallon jug and went to the counter to pay.
"Is that all you want?" the man asked. I looked down and saw beef jerky sticks-- two for a dollar.
"I guess I'll take two of those, too," I said.
"Have it," he said. I thought I'd misheard him, but before I could ask what he meant, he asked, "You sure you don't want a cold drink or something?" I said I was OK, but in good Asian fashion, the man walked out from behind his counter, plucked a cold drink from one of his fridges, and brought it to me. A Korean would understand this behavior.
"How much?" I asked.
The man smiled and shook his head, obviously indicating that everything was free. I was shocked. "I have to pay you!" I said.
"It's all right," he answered.
I shook my head in wonder and thanked the man for his generosity. Then I said, "I'm doing this walk for religious reasons. You wouldn't, by chance, have a religion, would you?"
"I'm Hindu," was the response.
"Ah, one of the great, old religions," I said, thereby ignoring years of academic teaching to the effect that "Hinduism" is an umbrella term for what is really a wide variety of religious traditions. It was only late in Indian history that Indians themselves embraced the designation. For centuries their own belief and practice would have been referred to with terms like sanatana dharma, the eternal law.
Anyway, the man nodded proudly. "Older than Christianity," he said. No argument here: it's a toss-up as to which is older-- the ancient Hebrew religions that gave rise to Judaism, or the proto-Vedic traditions that gave rise to what we collectively call Hinduism. Both are arguably millennia older than Christianity, which along with Islam ranks as one of the "young punk" religions in human history. Buddhism and philosophical Taoism are both roughly a half-millennium older than Christianity, so they might be considered rather green, too, from the larger perspective. A little humility is called for when you face your elders.
I went outside to fill my Camelbak and eat the beef sticks. Then a thought struck me and I went back into the shop.
"Excuse me, but what's your name?" I asked.
"Ashok," Ashok said.
"Like the great king," I smiled. Ashok grinned and wished me well on my journey. Some other customers came in, and it belatedly occurred to me that I should get the man's picture, which I did.
I left the gas station feeling great about the weather, and a little better about the human world. No reckoning of humanity's wickedness is complete without a fair account of the many and varied kindnesses we do each other... sometimes without anyone's asking.
I hope this post doesn't get Ashok in trouble. It would be a shame to repay his kindness with inconvenience. I'm relying on my low site stats to save him.
_
final breffus
Just had my final breakfast and shower here at the abbey. Once I pack my things, I'll be heading to the Millersylvania State Park for some camping (my first night of camping!), then over to Centralia on Friday. Many thanks to the parents for the care package, which arrived yesterday, though I'm baffled by the inclusion of two pairs of sunglasses-- I can wear only one pair at a time until I grow another set of eyestalks, guys!
Breakfast this morning seemed hastier than the two previous mornings; many of the monks were finished barely ten minutes into their repast. The guest house lost Matt and Lisa yesterday morning, but gained two new guests later in the day: a gent named Tom and a lady whose name I haven't learned. We three sat at the guest table this morning, but because we ate silently, we didn't introduce ourselves to each other. I hope these two enjoy their stay as much as I've enjoyed mine. (In fact, I'm pretty sure I've regained a pound or three.)
A few parting thoughts before I finish packing and head for the open road:
I came to this abbey partly out of curiosity (Alan had found it and recommended it as one possible stopping point), but also partly to talk interreligious dialogue with the Catholics and, moreover, to rest my feet.
So how did it go? As far as my feet are concerned, the four nights of rest were a very good thing. My right foot looks awful with all that dead skin hanging off it, but both feet feel infinitely better, ready to travel.
In terms of satisfying my curiosity, well... I'd need to stay here for a few years to begin truly to understand all the architecture, imagery, history, and living reality of the place. I arrived at a quiet time, so I also missed out on a true taste of wild and wacky campus life, something I hope to see more of when September finally rolls around (man... where will I be in September?). I also missed the 6:25AM prayer every day of my stay, though I have witnessed the brief noon prayer and caught vespers my first day here. If I'd had the time, I'd have explored the Benedictine monk's daily routine in depth.
In terms of talking shop with people of the cloth, I think I was well rewarded, having spent over an hour talking with the erudite and humorous Brother Luke, whose thoughts will-- eventually-- be transcribed here. Our conversation was rich and wide-ranging, and I'm thankful for it.
It was also great to meet the hardworking and cheerful Father Paul, Guestmaster of the Saint Martin's Abbey Guest House, who gave advice on procedure while at vespers and that first evening meal, and who kindly did my laundry twice (on two separate occasions, I mean, not twice in rapid succession!). Father deserves a lot of credit for having made my stay so pleasant.
Furthermore, I was happy to meet Matt and Lisa, my fellow guests-- a bright and happy young couple who struck me as very much in love, and very comfortable in the Church (Matt's an SMU alum, by the way). It was great to talk with them, however briefly. I wish them the best in all their future pursuits, and yes, I'll be sure to email them and to check out Matt's websites (he's a musician, too).
So-- as has been true of the other places I've visited and people I've met, it's with a heavy heart that I leave this place.
Thank you, SMU, for your hospitality!
And now... the walk goes on.
UPDATE: Today's the day I definitely break the 200-mile mark.
UPDATE 2: I need to add that, if ever you find yourself in the Olympia/Lacey area, the SMU Guest House is a marvelous place to stay. The monks will alert you to when the mealtimes and prayer times are, but they'll never force you or otherwise insist that you attend any of their activities. I paid $40/night for three meals per day and a nice room (communal bathroom, dorm-style, but very neatly appointed and maintained).
The campus itself is relaxing and beautiful-- a great place for strolling. This is a far better place to stay than any motel (it seems almost insulting even to compare this place with a motel), and if you're Catholic, it's a chance to stay connected to your inner life of prayer and contemplation. Call the guest house, make arrangements, and enjoy a few days of peace!
_
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
shout-out to Brother Luke
Brother Luke took some time out of his busy schedule-- an hour and fifteen minutes, in fact-- to talk with me about issues in interreligious dialogue (lay and monastic), Catholic doctrine, who Saint Martin was, and other issues. I'm very thankful to have had that time with him, but I now face the daunting task of transcribing that exchange as well! It's over twice as long as the Kevin/Genjo dialogue, which I've only barely begun to transcribe.
Good luck with Korean homework, Brother Luke, and continued good luck with your other studies and pursuits! Thanks for mentioning all those websites for me to check out.
_
on behalf of Alan Cook (IMPORTANT!!!)
I've been meaning to write this post for a while, and now that I've got some free time, I have to carpe that diem.
I'm not sure how many of my readers understand and appreciate what Alan Cook, a man I've never met face-to-face, has been doing for Kevin's Walk. In fact, I'm not sure that I myself know the full extent of Alan's commitment, but I can say this: managing the Walk is a full-time business, and Alan is shouldering this burden alone, despite having a personal life and a full-time freelance job.
Alan hasn't uttered a single word of complaint about what he's been doing, even though he has every right to. On my behalf, he (1) researches possible/plausible routes for me to take, often noting distances between cities and possible obstacles in the form of terrain or special property (e.g., military bases); (2) notes with great thoroughness what the likely religious institutions in the area are, and attempts to contact them well in advance of my arrival; (3) manages my CouchSurfing account, sending internal messages to likely hosts on my behalf, then relaying to me which hosts have responded and how best to contact them; and (4) offers common-sense advice to me when he feels I might be making a rash or misguided decision. On top of all this, Alan finds the energy to leave erudite and/or humorous comments on my blog.
Any one of the above duties is practically a full-time job in itself. Alan Cook basically is Kevin's Walk Central, and his behind-the-scenes work has allowed me simply to walk onward and to contact only those individuals and institutions that are both likely to be along my path and likely to respond affirmatively to the prospect of hosting me.
Such research and communication takes hours and hours per day, and while Alan hasn't complained, I worry that he will one day suddenly collapse like a black hole because of the stress, taking the planet with him. He's taken on an immense burden, one that, by all rights, should be distributed among at least ten people.
So now we reach the crux, the purpose of this little essay, which is to beseech my readers to get actively involved in this project of mine and to take some of this enormous burden off Alan's shoulders. This has to be done even if Alan has experienced no stress thus far: he's already told me that his assistance has a time limit-- for various reasons (including his own transcontinental project), he won't be able to see this Walk through to its conclusion.
So let me talk a bit about what Alan and I have discussed and decided, and what remains undecided.
We agree on what the "flow chart" for a team-based version of Kevin's Walk Central should look like. At the top would be Admin (or Coordination, if you prefer), staffed by one or more individuals. Under this would be several "departments":
1. Pathfinders: this department would deal with issues like where Kevin should go next (e.g., a more southerly route or a more easterly route?), what the distances are between cities/towns, what the terrain will be like, what roads and trails will be walkable, what bridges will be illegal(!), and other on-the-ground specifics. While this department wouldn't have the final say on what my ultimate path will be (that would be Admin's responsibility), their input would need to be heeded by all the remaining departments (see below) so that waypoints aren't strung together willy-nilly, with no consideration of how plausible a route actually is. This department might also work closely with Admin to look at the Big Picture aspect of my path across the country.
2. Catholic: this department would focus exclusively on contacting Catholic churches, abbeys, cloisters, convents, and other such communities in the hopes of finding groups or individuals willing to host me for a night or three (always in the knowledge that I'll need a place to do laundry and sleep; food remains optional). [We might also include Orthodox establishments in this department.]
3. Protestant: as above, but for a target demographic of Protestants. I imagine this department will be very busy throughout my entire Walk, as will the Catholic department; Christians are still the largest religious demographic in the US, and most of my time will be spent with them.
4. Buddhist: as above with (2), but with Buddhists. Zen temples, Tibetan temples, Soka Gakkai communities, Vipassana centers, Buddhist individuals, etc., are the target demographic here.
5. Hindu/Sikh/Jain: as above with (2), but dealing with the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain communities. Given my experience in attempting to communicate with Sikh gurdwaras (and as Satpal Sidhu himself warned me), I think at least one department member should be familiar with some of the languages and cultures of the Indian subcontinent.
6. Islam: as with (2), but dealing with Muslim individuals and communities. There might be language issues here as well.
7. Judaism: as with (2), but dealing with Jewish individuals and communities.
8. Unitarian Universalism: as with (2), etc.
9. Miscellaneous Religions: what have I missed? Native American communities, new religious movements, Scientology, Shinto, religious (or, heck, philosophical) Taoism, shamanism, and whatever other "-isms" might be out there. Avoid crazy cults that might be more likely to view me as a human sacrifice or sex slave than as an interlocutor.
10. Academia: this department would scout along my projected path for whatever colleges and universities might be interested in setting me up both for lodging and for some energetic exchanges with bright young minds (as well as profs, of course!). I actually hope to hit a LOT of institutes of higher learning along the way (better luck during the normal academic year, I surmise), so this department has the potential to be very near and dear to me. And hey, if the people who staff this department of Kevin's Walk Central can finagle my ass into, say, a three-day religious conference or an on-campus interfaith event, tant mieux (all the better). Not to speak at such an event, mind you-- just to attend.
11. CouchSurfing: this department would take over Alan's stellar work in using my CouchSurfing profile to solicit potential hosts along my projected itinerary. Alan could train newbies in how to do this. It's not an easy job, but the CS site itself does much of the work: it's a bit like a dating service, matching travelers and hosts.
12. Non-CouchSurfing (NCS): this department would have the unenviable task of approaching individuals not affiliated with CouchSurfing with requests to lodge me for free. Not an easy sell, but possible if you're resourceful, connected, and sociable. The job would be nearly impossible for an introvert (such as yours truly), methinks.
13. Campsites and Boonies: this department would look at where I'm generally heading, divide my probable path into 10- or 20-mile bites, and gather info on what campsites (or campable areas in the boonies) might be available. This is also the department that might arrange either a chase vehicle (water, food, sleep space, etc.) for those barren stretches, or a driver who will pick me up when I've reached Point X by Time Y, take me to someone's house to crash that night, then drive me back to the exact point where I was picked up the previous evening.
You'll have noted that one of the unstated objects of all the above departments is to keep me moving along without having to pay for lodging, a major problem up to now, as I've been bleeding cash. Unfortunately, even religious centers have gotten into the pay-to-stay game (not that I blame them; how else can they maintain their facilities?), so this goal is hard to achieve unless I decide to spend most of my nights illegally camped somewhere.
But paid accommodation will sometimes be necessary, so the final department is:
14. Hotels, Motels, B&Bs, etc.: this department will scout along my route and check out rates and locations (and the relative quality) of whatever lodging is out there.
[NB: If the other departments can find only paid lodging with the various institutions they look up, then so be it. That in itself is information for a future book.]
I think that just about covers the departments. Alan told me he had conceived of a flow chart pretty much along these lines, so I assume the above schema is more or less acceptable to him.
I would encourage the above departments to talk to each other, but ultimately it'll be up to Admin to whittle the plethora of choices down to a single, walkable path. This will also mean that the various departments will have to go back to the temples, churches, CouchSurfers, etc., whose sites have been ELIMINATED, and inform them that they are no longer needed, thanks. This is a basic courtesy: it keeps individuals and institutions from being strung along.
It would be nice if each department consisted of two or more people. As I said, the duties of even a single department constitute a full-time obligation. Many hands make light work. It's hard for a single person to toss Kevin across a river, but not a problem for twenty people to get together and do it.
Alan and I have not settled on how to deal with emails, but we have discussed the issue. As I see it, we can handle emails one of two ways:
1. Each department of KWC gets its own email address. For example:
KWC_Catholicism@gmail.com
KWC_Protestantism@gmail.com
KWC_Buddhism@gmail.com
KWC_HinduJainSikhism@gmail.com
KWC_Islam@gmail.com
KWC_Judaism@gmail.com
KWC_Unitarian@gmail.com
KWC_Miscellaneous@gmail.com
KWC_Academia@gmail.com
KWC_CouchSurfing@gmail.com
KWC_NonCS@gmail.com
KWC_CampsBoonies@gmail.com
KWC_HotelsMotels@gmail.com
This cuts down on the confusion of having all the emails in one place.
2. We keep the single email address and use the Gmail "labels" function to separate out the emails being sent and received. This keeps things simple for the people who want to send us emails, but the potential for internal confusion goes up if, for example, incoming/outgoing mails are mislabeled, or if people forget to apply labels at all (sometimes labels need to be manually applied if, for example, an email comes in with a subject heading that doesn't produce an automatic label).
Alan had a concern about several people logging on to the same email account at once, but my own experience in Seoul was that I could have my old email account open on two different computers without there being a problem.
So-- what say? We could use some volunteers. Alan could definitely use a break, even though he hasn't said so. Because Alan is running Kevin's Walk Central right now, I'd ask you to approach him directly if you'd care to volunteer. Write him at:
kevinswalkcentral [at] gmail [dot] com
One other thing: when I say "volunteer," I'm not saying "volunteer for the entire duration of the Walk." If you could devote, say, two or three months to it, that would be great. When your time gets short, find a replacement and train that person in what you were doing. That way, KWC retains a sort of "institutional memory," with procedures being passed from replacement to replacement as necessary.
Another thing to consider: if you're a Christian, why not volunteer to head up or work in a non-Christian department? Same if you're a Buddhist, or a Whatever. Just something to think about.
Right... that's all I have to say about the situation for now. I'm sure Alan might have something to add, so check the comments to this post. And if you feel you can devote some time to helping out, please write Alan (who is de facto Admin Dept.) and work something out.
Thanks in advance to all you potential volunteers, and a thousand thanks to Alan for the amazing job he's done so far.
_
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