The pattern at this point–and I’ve been fortunate enough, in multiple ways, for this pattern to have well and truly emerged–is that the worst days of a long-distance hike, especially at an accelerated pace, tend to be the third and fourth for me. The first is usually a breeze–I’m fresh and healthy, and my body barely registers the shock. The ache comes on with day two. And the third and fourth make me reevaluate my choices. Fortunately, things start to improve on the fifth day, and continue steadily onward from there.
By contrast, the first day here–yesterday–was physically rough. I’d compare it to a typical day three. That really caught me off guard; if anything, I suspected that I might avoid the worst of the grind this time, since I’m coming fresh off of pilgrimage. I figured my body was as ready as it could be. Instead, it struggled. I was put off by this fact.
Nonetheless, after a good night’s sleep, and a really enjoyable opening section today between Lawrenceburg and Aurora, my body rebounded beautifully today. It was comparable, perhaps, to a normal day six, already well into the recovery/transition.
Over the first two days, I’ve been listening to Alienated America, by the conservative journalist Tim Carney. Like most Portlanders, Carney seemed pretty shaken up by the Trump ascension, and this book constitutes his attempt to make sense of it. While his conclusions–at the risk of being reductivist and doing him a disservice, I’ll distill them down to mo’ marriage, mo’ church–risk being an exercise in confirmation bias, Carney does a nice job of grounding his commentary in the research and this reads as a good faith effort to approach this subject in an even-handed fashion.
Ultimately, one of Carney’s main points–the biggest one, really–is that Trump is a consequence of the breakdown of community, a reflection of the many Americans who are, you guessed it, alienated. It’s what they’re alienated from that is striking: pretty much everything. There’s nothing new or novel here (half of Carney’s book is footnotes to Murray, Vance, Putnam, and even Hochschild; somehow, though, he missed The Big Sort and thus tanked my Trump-explainer bingo card), but it resonates all the more for me given that it comes on the tails of the last book I read, Chasing the Scream, which focuses on addiction. The author of that book (sorry, typing this without wifi and can’t recall it) ends with a tidy distillation of what he learned: the opposite of addiction is connection. As Americans have become more isolated, more lonely, more insular, there has been a corresponding spike in self-medication. There are other factors driving drug use, of course, but the current clusters of the meth/opioid crisis are not accidental. We all need to see a future worth pursuing and people to share it with.
I had all of that in my mind as I entered Aurora this morning and smiled, thinking about how much Carney would approve: two church spires and a large sign for the local Lions Club dominated the view. Later, as I departed Aurora, I followed a lovely and newish riverside park/walkway, with large shelters marked with Lions Club donation signs, and each lamp post saluting a family that contributed to the initiative. Before I got to that point, though, I was in the IGA Grocery, waiting for an elderly man to finish pouring his coffee, so that I could get one of my own 80-cent coffees (a detail that has subsequently been trumped by the Friendship Grocery, where I’m typing this, which has 50-cent coffee). He turned to me and asked, “how far are you going?” I don’t know if he heard my response or not–he winced and blinked and struggled to make sense of me–but he then made his offer: “I’ve got some windows at my place that need washing, if you’d like to earn ten dollars.” He read my as a down-on-his-luck wanderer and wanted to give me a shot to make a bit of cash. (I didn’t take the offer.) Now I want to test Carney’s thesis and see how Aurora voted in the last election…
From there, I still had the bulk of the walk in front of me, but I wouldn’t see another store, shop, or any other official commercial activity (aside from farming, of course) until arriving in my final destination. Once again, the walk was entirely paved (with one brief, but notable moment), but it was quite rural, with very occasional cars (ok, trucks) interrupting the silence. I passed through a couple of tiny villages, but they didn’t look that different from the scattered houses and farms the rest of the way. Only when I finally reached Farmers Retreat, a few miles before Friendship, did I arrive in what felt like a substantial clustering of homes.
It was a great day for critters, though! I saw a few groups of deer, two clusters of guinea hens, a turtle crossing the road, a pair of possums, a really striking cardinal, and a bunny.
My final destination, Friendship, is a quaint little place, with a tiny main street that has a grocery (currently making me a pizza), a tavern, and a campground (where I’m sleeping, and where I may well be entirely alone, which makes the whole town feel like false advertising).
Technical Notes:
- That lone off-road stretch today was a short gravel road and a creek-fording opportunity. It was nice to get my feet wet mid-walk
- The ADT turn-by-turns have a number of paved walkways identified as trails. I guess the distinction they’re drawing is that these have zero auto traffic, but I don’t love that labeling. When I see “trail,” I think “unpaved”
- I split with the ADT at one point today, turning right onto Prosperity Ridge Road instead of sticking alongside Laughery Creek. The GPS made it clear that this was more direct and I was ready for a change, and I have zero regrets. It was beautiful walking up on the ridge
- ADT waymarks were so good in Aurora that no gps or tbts were needed. Someone there is a fan! By contrast, I saw zero waymarks after that
Tomorrow will be a very different experience from the first two, with multiple towns with facilities breaking up the walk. Very excited about this!
Dave
