h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Considering Kelli's fantastic performance recently, I was trying to recall the longest walk I've ever done.

I think that must be Mount Sinai in Egypt - first 1½ hour on camel back, and then 1 hour of walking up stairs that are rumored to have been created by a munk who was doing repentance, if that's the word I'm thinking of.

1 hour up stairs with the air growing thinner bit by bit.

In blistering hot sunshine.

With air so dry your sweat evaporated before you could even begin to feel sweaty - very odd feeling.

Watching a fabulous sunset beyond ragged mountains surrounding us, and then rolling out the sleeping bag to spend the night up there. Fell asleep immediately feeling absolutely exhausted.

And it was freezing! I didn't get much sleep, but the night sky, with no light pollution for miles - I've never seen the Milky Way so clearly, so in a way I'm greatful I didn't manage to get much sleep. So many stars that I couldn't see even the most common constellations.

And then getting trampled by Japanese tourists climbing the mountain to catch the sunrise (it was still dark when they reached the top).

And I feel I'm repeating myself, but if you're a friend of mine, you should be used to that by now - I repeat myself in RL too. Close RL friends know most of my stories by heart by know, and can fill any details I might have omitted.

If there was a safe and exact method of analysing the various areas/functions of the brain, it would be quite interesting to know why I seem to be completely lacking

a) a memory section for names (no such directory found at this moment)

b) connections - I recognise a face but don't know from where - it could be a former colleague or a supermarket cashier or a celebrity (yes, I've been know to cheerfully greet celebreties with 'hi, long time no see!).

c) a story memory - stories I've told the same people over and over again. 'Did I ever tell you about the time that I' - yes, about a dozen times (that's the frank and straight forward answer), but too many people are too polite to bother pointing it out so listen patiently until I realise myself that 'hey, haven't I told you this story already?'

Names and connections are the major problems, because the information is there, in my brain, but I'm just simply completely unable to access it when I need to. I'm the kind of person that can wake up three days later in the middle of the night in my bed, sit up and exclaim 'yes, of course!' because that's when they penny finally dropped. Delayed recalling of memorised data? Is there even a 'proper' name for it?

Oh I did that climb too! But climbed through the night to watch the sunrise. But yes, that description of the vividly clear milky way and thousands of stars just brings it all back!

The hardest one I've done was in 2008 in Norway. 20 km 812.5 miles) in mountains, the last half of the day more or less uphill all the way. Not dramatically but constantly up, up, up.

In a headwind and, once we got to 900-1000 m altitude, wet because we basically were in the bottom of the clouds. These conditions make for some heat loss - again, it wasn't dramatic but it does suck some enrgy out of you.

Oh, and as it was day 1 and we hadn't yet eaten lots of the food we were carrying, I was carrying an 18 kg (40 lbs) backpack.

The fabulous terrain and the wonderful group of scouts and leaders more than made up for the hardship. But once we'd pitched the tent (no pegs in the ground, all done with rocks) and eaten, I was dead. I was so tired that I sat for a minute looking at my legs and the sleeping bag and could not decide which one went in first...

10 hours of sleep did wonders. And we did 2 x 15 km more the next two days

812.5 miles) should of course have been (12.5 miles)

I was just going to say 'next time you take a walk like that tell my stepbrother in Tromsö I said hi'

Well done, all of you. I took a long walk in the Swiss alps once, but conditions were perfect so it wasn't a big deal

However I did once ride 230 km on my bike in one day all by myself. 13 years ago, maybe I should repeat that. It was a marvellous experience

my longest walk was 2meters from the front room to the fridge to get a beer

You stayed in the frige

I'm not sure when or where my longest ever walk was. Must give it some thought. I'm sure it wasn't long enough to impress anyone.

I feel the need to brag

40 Miles (+ 1 mile to the bus stop...)

I still can only just manage 2 miles 1 week on.

A 100 year walk to the toilet in the middle of the night felt like the longest walk to me on Saturday night.

But I had just sprained my ankle on a walk in deep countryside that day

Still sore but can laugh about it now.


I think my longest walk was up to the top of Ben Nevis and back down again in one day.
People in Europe sneer at british mountains but in the Alps one doesn't start climbing the Matterhorn from sea level.

year = yard dunno where that came from.

Speaking of sea level, I have twice walked 20-30 km along the danish Side of the North Sea

Just me, the endless white beach, dunes to one side, waves to the other, the wind and the clear blue sky

Probably the best walks I ever had - at least they are among the best in my personal top ten

just got back from the fridge

You look a bit though, better have a to defrost

Interesting thread!

Before the moonwalk my longest was about 14 miles in a day through some pretty bits of the Cotswolds. The frequent pub stops were most beneficial

I'm completely recovered from Sunday morning's task now, and did a 6 mile bike ride with the boys today - am sure this is where I am finding all the training is paying off.

Vicksburg Trail, Mississippi
http://www.nps.gov/vick/planyourvisit/14mile.htm
I believe this is the longest walk I’ve done in my life, except maybe that march to Bhutan, but that’s another story. Anyway, it was in my youth, when I was a Boy Scout. Y’all might know I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and it’s where I spent most of my pre-“move out, child, you’re old enough to start living on your own” life. My parents rarely scheduled vacations, because my Dad was living on an Enlisted salary in the Air Force. So, it was one the best times I experienced in Scouting, traveling to a different city (in our state) to camp out, visit a historical museum, and walk the full 14-mile trail.

My Dad was still fairly active on our troop’s activities in those days, and he came along to help the Scout Master corral us if we started acting up. What? We were “good boys” who wouldn’t even ~think~ of causing a scene or straying off from the group…intentionally.

As it happened, one of my close friends and I managed to wander away from the rest of the gang, after we’d gone several miles into the hike around the Memorial Park. Short loo break, or some such. When we headed back to where they should have been, they’d already moved on--without us!

We didn’t panic. We knew we’d catch up to them in short order because they were surely just ahead of us. So we double-timed it for a while, assured our pace would help us overtake them. After nearly an hour of forced marching, giving only a cursory view of all the monuments we passed, we began to realize something was drastically wrong. We took a drink break and took stock of our assets. One peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a single canteen of water. We split the sandwich and found a drinking fountain to refill the canteen. We were determined to catch up to our troop, so we set off again.

After another hour plus a bit of pushing ourselves to the limits of our youthful endurance we finally spotted the first glimpse of members of our troop coming toward us. They must have doubled back to find us after all! That wasn’t exactly the case, as we soon found out. We actually hadn’t been noticed missing until about a half-hour before we reestablished contact. But in that time, my Dad had worked himself up from surprised to concerned to furious. I got an earful about paying attention, staying with the group, and communicating effectively for any change in plans.

Then we got the rest of the story. The place we’d taken our first rest break was a cross-over point in the trail: a sort of “figure 8” waistband. (You’ll notice this on the map from the National Park site.) When my friend and I had restarted our journey, we’d gotten turned around and began traversing the “back leg” of the trail. We’d gone the long way round and had breezed by all the monuments our brother Scouts had yet to see. Another key aspect to navigating the trail is simply to look down and notice the arrows on the road. They are set up to point walkers along the trail in one direction, with car travelers driving “against the arrows,” so the pedestrians can be aware of the on-coming vehicular traffic. If we’d paid attention, we might have followed the trail in the right direction and actually caught up to our troop in several minutes, rather than several hours.

The trip to our camping grounds was pretty sullen, and we never lived down our lack of Orienteering Skills along a plainly marked path. “So…did we do the requisite 14 miles?” I asked my feet later that evening, and for several days afterward. “Yes, and then some,” was their answer.

Terceira, Praia da Vitoria, the Azores, just off Lajes Field (an Air Force Station there)
http://www.azores-islands.info/uk/index.html
One of the most enjoyable hikes I’ve ever taken was on a lark. I had a lay-over on the island after-- Wait! This requires a bit of back-story.

From about half-way through my military career, I’d started experiencing bouts of gagging during certain meals. Typically, it occurred when I wolfed down food under stress. It would get stuck and I’d have to-- Well, you know; get rid of it. It manifested itself more frequently as the years went on, and it came to its pinnacle while I was assigned to my final tour of duty, in Iceland. My wife and children had grown increasingly more concerned for me, so one night, in the midst of one of the “episodes” when I could hardly breath due to the blockage, we went to the Emergency Room at the Base Hospital.

A doctor there help relieve the pressure by making me chug down a fizzy concoction, then questioned me about the problem. He’d seen the symptoms before and recommended a series of tests. One test required me to got to Reykjavik and have a “greased up” fiber optic cable shoved up my nose, through my sinus cavity, and down into my throat. “Try not to let your gag reflex get the better of you; we need to take these pictures of your esophagus,” said the medical technician. Right. Easy for him to say.

By the photos and a barium swallow, they found I had an esophageal diverticulum. A small pouch had formed mid-way down my throat and food would pile up in it and block the rest of the meal from traversing down. The doctor then recommended laparoscopic surgery to staple it shut and cut off the excess. This meant a trip to Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia. The regularly scheduled flight route went from Keflavik to Thule, Greenland to Portsmouth; the return leg went from Portsmouth to Lajes Field, the Azores, then back to Keflavik.

The surgery went well. The staff was great. I was up and about the next day, and the following day, I was headed home to the family. The lay-over in the Azores was slated for more than half a day, so I was searching for something to do. I grabbed a bite at the bowling alley concession and consider rolling a few frames. Then I thought to myself, “Self, how often will you get a chance like this to explore a foreign land you’ve never yet seen? What are you waiting for? Get out and about!”

I let a couple of folks know I was going for a walk, but none of us realized where that simple idea would lead me. I walked down the main route south from the air terminal, which took me through the eastern edge of town of Praia da Vitoria. I smiled at everyone I met and many of the locals acknowledged my presence with a wave or a smile in return. I kept going, past close-set clusters of houses, past narrow streets that led up into the hills of the coastal farmland, until I reached a round-about with an art nouveau circular sculptured wall. I noticed a dirt trail leading up a rise toward a statue in the distance. It was a shrine to a saint and the paved approach led farther north to a gravel dirt track. I turned right to follow it as it ran eastward, cutting a nearly straight line between individual sectioned-off green fields.

A ramshackle stone structure caught my attention as I came up to it. It must surely have seen better days, yet it still stood, resolute, holding onto the basic shape of its framing, though its walls were pitted and its roof had gaps in a number of places. The sound of whinnying made me curious, so I entered and passed through to the back. There stood young horses, perhaps used to plough the fields, and they stood perfectly at ease with their accommodations, as well as my presence. I petted them, held a brief conversation with them, then said my good-byes.

The path continued on for not much more before I reached the edge of a steep slope downward. Its lower reaches ended in the surf of the Atlantic, which surrounded the island. The view from the promontory was awe-inspiring and humbling. I marveled at the contrast between the carpet of foliage and shimmering expanse of water; the knowledge of my physical stature in comparison to the great wide world around me. I drew in a cleansing breath and started down the embankment.

I clambered through low scrubs and small trees, working my way to the left, the soft echoes of surf wafting up from my right. At one point, I had to slip through a wire fence and found myself standing amongst a field of banana trees, their large dark fronds providing an abundance of shade. The going was slow and I had to be methodical to keep my footing, yet the scent of the plants and the loam and the tang of the ocean breeze all worked to invigorate me. I’d never felt so alive in all my years!

I followed the steep coastline for quite a while before I turned back inland, taking an upward tack through dense scrub that eventually became more sparse as I crested the hill. I followed another dirt path in the general direction I reckoned would take me back toward town, and was rewarded by coming out upon the same track I’d come in on. It took another hour or so to retrace my steps to the military base and the terminal. I was spent by the time I arrived and, luckily, only had to wait a short while before the flight back to Iceland took off. It was one of the few times I can recall ever having slept on an aircraft flight.

Lastly, did you that Kate Bush’s album “The Hounds of Love / The Ninth Wave” is the definitive background music for a 5-mile trip home from a Gasthaus (Zur alten Abtei, Ernst Mereien, Hahnplatz 24, 54595 Prüm, Germany 06551 2360) to the doorstep of Im Flur #6, Schönecken, round-about 3am in the morning? From the first note to the final fade out, every track set the mood. I was on the long switchback grade for “Running Up That Hill”; I came out from under the trees at the top of the hill just as “The Big Sky” kicked off; weariness from the late hour and the uphill climb started to set in with “And Dream of Sheep”; “Waking the Witch” creeped me out as I walked under a gibbous moon through farm country; when “Jig of Life” started, I got my second wind; I finished my jaunt in the mists of “Morning Fog,” literally. What an intriguing walk. I’ll never forget!

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