Days 96 & 97 – 10/10-10/11 – Boardman to Biggs Junction, OR – 68 miles
Modern pilgrimage, for all the echoes we’re fond of highlighting, is awfully different from its medieval predecessor. That’s hardly a controversial statement. I wonder, though, if we’ve ever fully grappled with the profound ways that flying (or taking the train or bus) home–as opposed to walking home, making that same long journey in reverse–fundamentally alters […]
Days 94 & 95 – 10/8-10/9 – Pendleton to Boardman, OR – 56 miles
There’s an old saying in baseball that momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. It might be the only accurate statement ever made about momentum in sports. It’s a classic narrative move, focusing on a single, distinct action, like a turnover or a dramatic score, and then extrapolating a larger trend from there. There’s something […]
Days 92 & 93 – 10/5-10/6 – La Grande to Pendleton, OR – 57 miles
Sometimes, an entire story unfolds over the course of a walk. It helps, of course, to have 57 miles and two days to allow that runway to unfold in full. The road signs leaving La Grande are aggressive. Not only do they alert drivers to the 17% grade looming ahead on the dirt track, but […]
Day 91 – 10/4 – North Powder to La Grande, OR – 31 miles
A quiet road led me northward from North Powder, climbing gently through rolling hills. Suddenly, an agricultural vehicle veered off the road directly into my path, slowing to a halt as the driver leaned halfway out the cockpit. “Just a heads up–we’re about to be herding 800 cattle on this road. They’ll be coming right […]
Day 90 – 10/3 – Baker City to North Powder, OR – 21 miles
When did the Wild West end? It’s a contested issue, in part because the whole notion of the “Wild West” is contested, but also because any prolonged, ill-defined era is going to suffer from arbitrary endpoints. If you pin down a historian, though, and make them commit to a year, they’ll probably squirm for a […]
Days 88 & 89 – 9/30-10/1 – Ontario to Baker City, OR – 85 miles
I have a vivid memory from the first time I left North America. No, it doesn’t involve some UNESCO World Heritage site. I was watching television in England. Some BBC channel. The idea behind the show was that people who found potentially interesting, historical objects buried in their yard could bring in experts to conduct […]
Days 86 & 87 – 9/28-9/29 – Caldwell, ID to Ontario, OR – 46 miles
How long can divisions flourish, can polarization mount, until the center can no longer hold and things fall apart? Perhaps we’ll have an answer before too long. Few current or former Republicans have paid as steep a price as David French for adopting a Never Trump stance. I recognize that critics could respond that his […]
Day 85 – 9/27 – Eagle to Caldwell, ID – 15 miles
As delightful as yesterday’s walk was, today’s was equally unpleasant. Early on, I was able to wind through some upscale residential neighborhoods, but as the day unfolded I increasingly had to resort to the major arterial heading westward towards Caldwell, which also happened to be the site of a good bit of construction and traffic. […]
Days 83 & 84 – 9/25-9/26 – Mountain Home to Boise to Eagle, ID – 63 miles
Of all the towns and cities I’ve passed through, Boise may embrace the literal Oregon Trail the most. Sure, many of the towns littered along the route have museums and pioneer-themed iconography sprinkled around, but the actual tracks followed by the pioneers are long gone, buried under tons of cement. By contrast, Boise preserves miles […]
Days 81 & 82 – 9/23-9/24 – Bliss to Mountain Home, ID – 53 miles
You’ll often hear people talking about the importance of getting off to a good start, and that’s certainly sound advice. Finishing well is a valuable skill in its own right, though, and it’s one that I’ve struggled to cultivate at many points in my life. As a student, I quickly learned that a strong fall […]