Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips
Sometimes you are right at something, but you cannot see it. Then you tell people that the thing isn’t there. Then you learn later that you were standing on it. Then, well I don’t know what happens then.
Such is Natural Bridge in Rockbridge County Virginia (the county is of course named after the [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
While looking at different things I used while taking a walk, I found a little file on the desktop of my computer called “Checklist.txt.” I created this early in the walk and used it often to help myself remember to do things each evening. I was, after all, a bit tired each evening [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
Pulaski, Virginia - It is a nice small city with a population of about 10,000 people. I remember walking in from the north (as the road goes). There was the Volkswagen van parking lot. I never figured out what that was. I also remember a large furniture factory that had been closed. That [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
While I was taking a walk, I was what I’ll call “semi-employed.” During 2008, I was employed by the government. During 2009, I was employed by a corporation. Well, sort of employed. The situation was very different in the two years, but equally complex. I won’t go into the details (boring), but suffice [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
My wife Karen accompanied me for the first half of the walk - Reston, Virginia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. She drove our car and walked much of the way as well. The basic scheme was:

Karen drops me at Point A
Karen drives the car to Point B and parks it there
I start walking from Point [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
I used a bicycle for a good part of the walk (see here for details). Two times I had a flat tire on my bicycle.
Let me start by writing that I am not a mechanic. I am not good at this; I have had little interest in it my entire life; I don’t [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
No, it wasn’t always fun. There were the times…
Loud windy days on the four-lane road - This was mostly in Tennessee, but there was one afternoon in Alabama as well. People drive faster on a four-lane divided highway than they do on a two-lane road. Much of the wind experienced while walking comes [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
That is a good question. I don’t have an answer. While taking a walk, I would refer to places as towns and cities. Some of the towns and their populations are:

Boligee, Alabama 345

Eutaw, Alabama 1,800

Calhoun, Tennessee 400

Sweetwater, Tennessee 5,500

New Market, Virginia 550

I found these numbers on Wikipedia. Some of the towns I walked [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
“Relax, breathe, calm yourself,” is what I thought over and over.
On the road, especially when alone, I wanted to go faster. “If I could only walk four miles an hour, I could…” I don’t remember how many times I ran this calculation while walking. I never found a good answer to this “if.”
I [...]

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by Dwayne Phillips
I used a Visa card extensively while taking a walk. My wife didn’t like this. “How can you use a credit card when you are buying something that cost two dollars?” was her usual disdainful question. I understood her dislike for this, but I still used the Visa card.
Every day I bought several [...]

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