lame walk

I went out to do the Stony Man Loop trail today, but I didn't get very far—maybe only a few hundred yards before I had to call it quits and turn around. Because my sense of balance is now shot, my best bet is to walk on paved roads, but Skyline Drive's trails are unpaved, rough, root-ridden, and often rocky (as much of Virginia is—rocky, I mean). So I followed the trail as far as I could today, then gave up when I came to a rocky outcropping that would have been easy for a normal person (or me in my youth), but dicey for someone with a stroke-addled brain like mine. When I reached the outcropping, I gave up and turned around. A giggling group of teen or twenty-something girls proceeded onward; I envied their youth and health.

And that was the extent of today's walk. Tomorrow, I'll do a much longer stretch along the road, doing what I can to avoid bears, deer, and ticks. A couple more days of this, then I'll check out of this hotel and shack up at my buddy's house. That'll be a relief: the restaurant next door to the hotel (which also serves breakfast for hotel residents) plays extremely loud dance music at night sometimes, and the "neighbors" I hear outside my door don't always sound like the friendliest types as they speak guttural Spanish or country English. The walls of my room are so thin, in fact, that when I sneezed a night or two ago, a male voice next door loudly said, "Bless you! (in a country where people actually acknowledge your sneezes!)" I didn't say anything back because I didn't want to get roped into a silly, shouted conversation. Those hotel guests are gone now. All of my next-door "neighbors" have been pretty transient, often waking up very early the next day to move along to wherever they're headed.

Right. So I'll try again at Skyline Drive tomorrow, even if it does mean dodging traffic. During the week, I've noticed, the traffic is a lot lighter.

Oh, yeah: I saw three walkers, all my age and older, hoofing it along the road today with packs and trekking poles. How long had they been at it? How many days or weeks? This inspired me to think about coming back here to hike the entire length of the Drive. It's 110 miles long (177 km), which makes the Drive shorter than the trails I've done in Korea. But it's also a generally hillier route, and I'd probably have to camp all along the way. Still, it's something to think about, not to mention good practice, especially if I one day want to do the Alaska Pipeline walk, a system of trails from the south coast of Alaska to the north coast. That, too, will take some major planning and prep, and probably someone's help. (Frankly, that's more of a bucket-list walk than something I'm seriously planning right now. And I'm not looking forward to Alaska's skeeters.)