Don't look up!

On Sunday I spent five hours and 33 minutes walking something like 21 miles, my third time doing such high mileage. Each time I've chosen a beer-serving destination as my dangling carrot. (Beer and pizza never tastes as good as when you burn it off BEFORE you shovel it into your face.) And each time, when we get to our destination--sunburned, soggy, and limping--we look for any opportunity to announce how we got there. Aside from training for my walk, that's really my main motivation for spending my afternoons wearing a fanny pack, a stop watch, and capris that leave nothing to the imagination. And everyone we tell seems to have the exact same response: "Why?"

Not "wow" or "good for you" or even "holy shit!" Just "why?" punctuated with a baffled expression that borders on disgust. I don't want to dwell on this, but I do want to offer this bit of advice: If someone tells you they walked 20 miles to get where they're standing right then, this is the preferred response: "Wow, holy shit! Good for you!"

Anyway, about 13 miles into Sunday's walk, we stopped to ponder a capped pipe sticking out of the ground that was labeled "Latin America." Of the many, many explanations we both offered, my favorite was that it was a vacuum tube like the ones used at bank drivethroughs (in the olden days) to suck in your deposit and spit out a dum dum lollipop. You can imagine where our theories went from there.

I was positively giddy about having such great blog fodder, until I looked up and saw that the dorm building to our right was called "China." And the next was "Europe." And so on. Sadly, the mystery quickly unraveled. It wasn't that we actually thought the pipe lead out of the country. But logical explanations can really kill a mood.

Shortly after that, everything below my waist started to ache from the miles, and not even the constant threat of careless cyclists careening at us at 70 mph seemed noteworthy.