Walking

Europe is in the middle of a brutal winter with blizzards and freezing temperatures. I wonder how friends over there are faring. Bad weather may be the reason for the sudden increase in my readership. With nothing else to do, they stay home and drop in on my life.

In Colorado, friends living high in the Rockies are buried in a few feet of snow. They have food, a fireplace, and books to read, so are doing well, or so they report on Facebook, which means they still have electricity.

Here in Wisconsin, we're having unseasonably warm weather.  The snow is almost completely melted so the sidewalks and streets are clear.  We should be shoveling snow, instead I'm checking flower beds to see if there are any sprouts.  The lilac bushes in the back yard are beginning to bud. Snowmobiles are on many a lawn with "for sale" signs.

Usually during February I can't get out and walk.  In a normal year, Gary and I go to an Appleton mall to stroll around and around.  One complete circuit of the Fox River Mall equals a mile. When we can't do that, I go to the aquatic center almost every day for a workout, but not in this weather. This past week I dressed in lightweight clothes and put on a warm vest instead of a winter coat. Under a shining sun, I can walk three or four miles a day.

With mileage like that, I finally am making it through Bulgaria. I'll pass Sofia tomorrow, then it's 205 miles to Belgrade, Serbia.  If the weather remains mild, I hope to reach Belgrade by the beginning of June.

This, of course, is the imaginary trip around the world that I began years ago in Seymour.  I've marked the miles on maps as I walked.  Some years I make more miles, others less.  In 2011, I walked 675 miles, which is about average.  So far, I've walked 18,140 miles.  The circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles at the equator.  I will be taking a northerly route and some of those are ocean miles, but I am not exactly taking a straight route.  My current estimate is that at the rate I am going, I should return to Seymour in ten years, if my legs don't give out.

Tomorrow should be another sunny day, but that Colorado storm is heading east.  We'll not get to spring without a blizzard or two.