As the figurative me walks towards Lovelock, I think of our last Halloween. We were in Ottawa, touring the beautiful Parliament building and Peace Tower, and walking through the street market.


We ate a Beaver Tail, and went to the Ottawa Hard Rock. The Maitre d' walked through the restauant like a zombie. He kept trying to attract some cute girl who was studying. She was so intent that she never looked up at the silent Zombie. We then walked around in truly the most biligual town in Canada.



In my trip to New York City, I have walked 548,414 steps in 45 days. I have walked 259 miles on this trip. I am 55 miles from Lovelock.

A year ago on this day, Dorey and I went to Ottawa during our vacation. We stopped at the Canadian War Museum. I was a little worried about going into this museum. I have been to a couple of U.S. war museums, and have found them to be gingoistic. The Canadian War Museum, however, was even handed--celebrating the soldiers who served but asking interesting questions about the morality of war. I expected to spend about an hour there, but we spent about four hours there, and could have stayed longer. The most interesting exhibit was the exhibits in which they placed you into a trench as big as the ones in which World War One soldiers stayed. I would have been the first out of the trench, even if that meant death. I hate enclosed spaces. A highly recommended place.

Thinking about this day and this museum as helped me pass the last five miles as I walk toward Lovelock. I have walked 532,539 steps in 44 days. I have walked, then, 252 miles on my journey to New York City. My next major stop, Lovelock, which is 62 miles away.

Still on the way to Lovelock

I am five more miles down the road toward Lovelock in this, my figurative crossing of the Nevada desert.

In my many non-figurative crossings, a few stand out (for reasons other than Steve Wood’s bodily functions). One of the most memorable occurred on the day of my grandfather’s funeral. It was the Monday following the October General Conference in 1972. The funeral was dismissed at 12:00 p.m. My father was staying in Salt Lake City for a few days to be with my grandmother. My mother was driving back to the Bay Area in tandem with my other grandparents. At some point in the evening, I was shifted from my mother’s Volkswagen bus into my grandparent’s car. We listed to Monday night football as we crossed the desert. The Raiders were killing the Houston Oilers. If I recall correctly, this is the game where, on the tv side, the tv camera panned to an Oiler fan sitting alone on the third deck. The camera stayed on the guy forever. Finally, the guy flipped the bird at the camera. Don Meredith deadpanned, “That guy must think the Oilers are number one.”

I, riding in the car and listening to the radio, heard none of this. All I remember was that it was dark, and we were listening to the game and talking about the day’s events. My brother Rob was in the car with us. We started talking about the funeral. He said that he thought I had become a bit teary eyed in the funeral. I was all of 13, and very embarrassed that anyone had noticed. My grandmother just smiled, the way adults do when they know a kid’s been trapped. I now don’t care. I bawl like a baby at funerals these days, especially at the funerals of those grandparents in whose car I was riding that day.

I fell asleep in my grandparents’ car after the game ended. I was suddenly woken up. We were at the agricultural checkpoint in California. No one was around. I was told that I needed to hop out and get into my mother’s car. I ran between the two cars, climbing into the front seat of the Volkswagen. I will never forget running on the road at that spot. I felt at once grown up and a little childish.

We arrived home at about 2:00 a.m. When I had hopped into the car at the agricultural station, my mother had asked me to remind her that it was garbage day the next day, and that we needed to get the cans out. When I reminded her, she said that she was too tired to bother. We went into the house, and went to bed.

I have walked 246 miles from my home in Alameda. In 68 miles, I will be in Lovelock.

On The Way To Lovelock

I have crossed the Nevada desert on the I-80 route more times that I can count. I have, however, never walked--either figuratively or literally--across the desert. Even doing it figuratively is more than I can take.

We crossed the desert a few times with our friends, Steven and Betsy Wood. We were all attending BYU at the time. Steve’s family lived in Sacramento, so we would drive with Steve and Betsy to get home during breaks. Driving with Steve was always an adventure. He used to drive with his head facing backward. We would sort of bug Steve to look the other way around, but he would was interested in whatever was behind him more than he was interested in what was ahead of him.

But that was not the worst part of a trip with Steve. These trips usually took place in November or December, when it was very cold out on the desert. We stopped a couple of times at the Taco Time in Elko on these trips. At about Wendover, Steve’s bowels would begin to rumble. My, oh my, the gas that he could pass. Still makes my eyes water just thinking about Steve breaking wind. And we could not roll down the windows. Dorey and I still measure all bad smells by the smells let out by Steve on those trips. We have never found a close competitor. More on these trips in later posts.

The stats: I have walked 509,806 steps in 42 days. That means that I have walked 241 miles in 42 days. My next stop is Lovelock. It's 73 miles from here. As I do these 73 miles, I dream of the United Kingdom and Europe. Yesterday's picture was of the Cardiff Castle. Today's picture is of Hyde Park taken from the Marriott Park Lane on a December morning in 2003. Not a great picture, but a great memory.

Out of California and into Nevada

I have walked 236 miles in my figurative walk to New York City. The figurative me has past the beautiful City of Sparks, Nevada, and is on my way toward Lovelock. Both the literal and figurative me avoided stopping at the Bunny Ranch. As a result, I am still married.

I now have to tread across the Great Basin to Salt Lake City. A few hardy pioneers used to try to cross the desert on this route--going in the reverse direction that the figurative me is now going. They would load up with water and run from Salt Lake City to the Sierras. Most were not so foolhardy, and would cut down through Las Vegas. The Southern Route may have been hotter, but watering spots were closer together.

I am one of the foolhardy ones who is going to try to run across the Northern Nevada route.

Trek Days Up To 17

I have a moral dilemma. Last Monday, I could not find my pedometer. It turns out that Christian grabbed it off the counter before he left for work on Monday. He had it in his pocket all day. He walked over 12,000 steps with it.

So the dilemma--do I count his steps? Dorey has told me to relax, count them and be done with it. Pretend that you stopped at the Nut Tree, meet someone who gave you a six mile ride, and been done with it. Yet I ponder.

But as always Dorey wins.

So the stats--not daily because I am behind in writing, but not walking. Since I have started this trek, I have 208,996 steps. I have been out on the road for 17 days. I have walked 90 miles. 2861 miles and 568 steps to go until I reach the Big Apple. I have passed Fairfield, Vacaville, and have reached Davis. I am quickly moving into Sacramento.

I have driven through Fairfield on numerous occasions--probably over 200--on my way to Sacramento and elsewhere. I have stopped there only a few times, and most of those times I was going to a factory on the outskirts of town. This factory is one of the big food manufacturing companies which made bars for dozens of distributors. Unfortunately, this manufacturer put too much of an ingredient into one of the bars it manufactured, resulting in a recall. Lawsuits ensued, of course. One thing that I remember the most about that matter was talking to my clients on September 11, 2001. They were trying to get to a trade show in Las Vegas, but of course, could not fly. They were a little upset, not only about this problem but about everything that was going on. So my memory of Fairfield, beside trying to get through it without stopping, is getting yelled at. I don't have fond memories of the place.

As I passed Vacaville, I rued the day that the Nut Tree Restaurant closed. When I was a kid, we went there from time to time. I loved getting my personalized loaf of bread for my meat sandwich. I loved the marshmellow sauce on the fruit. I loved the fact that we had sixteen waitresses serving us. I loved the hot orange colors that the management refused to upgrade even after it went out of fashion. I loved the fact that no matter how what time you arrived, you would have to wait 20 minutes before being seated. I loved walking through the shop during that 20 minutes, always worried that I would hit something and wipe out a million dollars of glass trinkets.

Now in Vacaville are outlet stores and other stores that you can find nearly anywhere in the United States. They take paradise, and put up a parking lot.

Davis also has memories. When I applied to law school, I really wanted to go to Davis. I did not get accepted into it, though, until the I had already said I would go to Hastings. Dorey and I drove to check it out one Friday in May. It was 100 degrees that Friday. I decided that perhaps I should go to school in San Francisco. So thus ended our flirtation with Davis.