Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

Note: I’m visiting the dentist later this morning. I believe he is going to do some major work. Ouch! So, here is another odd essay about taking a walk.

The late Charles Kuralt did his “On the Road” pieces for CBS News for 20+ years. I loved those as a kid. One of the things he always said was:

Interstate highways allow you to drive coast to coast, without seeing anything.

That is one reason I am on U.S. Route 11. After ten days on the road, I add one thing to Kuralt’s statement:

You observe much more walking than you do driving.

I would not have believed this had I not experienced it myself. Sometimes Karen and I drive a section of road before we walk it. I am amazed at what I notice walking that I missed while driving.

For example, last week we took an evening drive to see Bridgewater College (south of Harrisonburg, Virginia but three miles off Route 11). We walked the same section of Route 11 the next morning. Route 11 split into a four-lane divided highway for that section. Neither of us had noticed the split the evening before. How can you not notice a two-lane road splitting into a four-lane road?

The list of examples goes on and on, and I won’t bore you with them. You see things from different angles, you can stop and soak it in, you hear things, and yes in rural farm land you smell things while walking that you never smell while driving.

I wish that you take a day, even half a day, and walk roads that you have driven thousands of times. What you observe may surprise you.