Istanbul

I've written about my imaginary walk around the world before, but now's the time for an update.

Decades ago, I decided to walk every day for exercise and to keep my weight down.  To make it interesting, I marked the miles on a map at the end of each week.  I began by walking west to the next town, Black Creek, six miles away.  As I recall, that took me three days.  I kept on walking.

I walked west to Minneapolis and visited, in my imagination, my sister Diane.  I visited friends in South Dakota then turned south, walking all the way down to Dallas, Texas before once again going west.  In time, I walked along the rim of the Grand Canyon, visited California's Big Sur, crossed Alaska's Bering Strait, spent more than three years traversing immense Siberia to Moscow before going south once more.

I thought that during my western tour, I would be spending more time on the national forest and park trails, but instead, I injured my knee and with no place to do the therapy, just suffered through, driving instead of walking for the most part.

Now I am doing the therapy in the heated pool at the aquatic center and building up the strength in the knee.  I am once more walking regularly.  If I manage to do ten miles next week, I will be in Istanbul, the crossroads between Asia and Europe.  From there, I think I will take a more direct route, to ensure that I manage the walk around the world that I set out to do.  Up until now, my route has meandered, taking me to interesting places, all while walking in Seymour, for the most part.

So far, I've walked 17, 803 miles.  I've learned a great deal of geography.  Other than that pesky knee, my health couldn't be better.  I give the credit to that crazy imaginary walk.    

I hope to finish the entire trip before I turn 80.