Sunday, April 23, 2006
It’s not easy to follow an act like walking from Canada to Mexico, especially when you start seeing that big six-oh sign peeking over the chronological horizon. How old will we be when we get to the Atlantic Ocean? Seventy-one? Seventy-two? Sounds a little scary. But how would we know unless we try? Besides, the fun of doing this kind of thing is in the process, so let’s go!
So it began. Since we had finished our West Coast rulk a year ago at the Mexican border, Joe had retired from his business in Medford, Oregon and moved to Albany in the heart of the Willamette Valley. His location was ideal for the start of our new project since we could sleep at his house for two weeks while shuttling each day to and from our walk site. During this two weeks Lisa also had her friend Marty visiting from Kansas, and was planning lots of excursions with her. We took advantage of this for the first few days. The four of us drove to Newport, Oregon, where Joe and I dipped our bare feet in the Pacific Ocean to start the journey east. We set a time and place for the ladies to pick us up, and they drove off to plunder antiques and boutiques.
Joe and I headed east across Highway 101, where we intersected our Rulk Route momentarily just north of the Yaquina Bay bridge. The rest of this trip would follow Highway 20 eastward.
Joe had decided after running all those miles down the coast that he was ready to enjoy this new project a lot more. He would now walk with me instead of running. So this would no longer be called a ‘rulk’. We would have to come up with a new name for it. I had suggested ‘pedigoogle’, meaning a world-wide search using the feet; Joe rejected it, saying it sounded like some kind of degenerate activity. Joe suggested “Pactic,” as an abbreviation for Pacific to Atlantic, but I didn’t think it was very pactical. At this point we have not come up with a new word for what we are doing.
