Back in the saddle. So to speak. Today I got back on the road and knocked off some miles around Washington. For those of you who can remember when we were last on the road, we finished our walk at Bowie Library on the outskirts of Washington. It’s a about 14 or so miles away from where we are staying now (Hyattsville) so I figured it was a good distance to get back into the swing of things.

Before I recount today’s road exploits however, I should note that yesterday was a good day for the walk. The news from Dave’s doctor’s appointment put smiles on all our faces, had the neighbours coming round to congratulate us and generally increased the life satisfaction quotient of the Hyattsville area by 50%. It was very good news. After a week of worrying that something very serious was going on, the discovery that the emergency room opinion was off the mark was great. As we are in America I encouraged Dave to sue the hospital but my litigious approach was rejected.

Anyway, today’s walk was about 14 miles, all of it on roads. To even get to the start point I had to get a bus to New Carrolton, change, and then get another to Bowie. At New Carrolton bus station I waited 30 minutes next to a fella in a ‘Jesus is my Homeboy‘ t-shirt. This guy, who was obviously very tired for some reason or another, proceeded to sit in front of me on the bus and enter into one of those tiredness-on-buses/trains things we all do whereby he falls asleep and then his head starts lolling all over the place. You should note at this point that his headphones are up to maximum volume, but the dude is so tired this makes little difference. He actually managed to get a circular lolling motion going on – he would dip at the front of his run and then circulate round to the back where he would kinda rise up and head towards me a bit before getting back into orbit. It was good – you could almost set your watch by him.

But I digress, a lot. I got dropped off at the start point and headed to Subway for some disinterested customer service and some breakfast. Then I was off. I only needed two roads for about 12 of my miles today – Annapolis Road and Riverdale Road (nb. note to any strict ADT followers – we are slightly behind schedule and have opted for a cross-city approach that eschews a few of the longer detours that the ADT has to offer). To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to today’s walk – I figured it would be huge traffic and a pain in the ass. In the end I was pleasantly surprised as there was little traffic in the first few hours, and I quickly got back into the rhythm of walking. It wasn’t particularly amazing to look about – we’re talking about three lane highways, McMansions and Stripmalls – but it was fast walking on pavements (sidewalks) which always means you get to look about.

For this walk I opted for a shorts, t-shirt, sunglasses and sunhat look, with a small pack containing only essentials. Even with such small baggage, I found that I still stood out, getting proper stares from motorists and curiosity from everyone going slower than a car. I was still rocking the Greetings Walk, which means that a tip of the hat or a nod of the head accompanies every person you pass. To my surprise for a very urban area, every single nod and tip was returned, often with pretty cheery salutations. It made me wonder (and not for the first time – when walking down the street in Brighton or Copenhagen I never say hello to strangers. God knows I’d look weird) – how is it that I feel able to say hello to everyone I see over here, as long as I’m wearing a pack?

Again, a slight digression. Today’s walking was swift, and efficient. No point in walking slowly by the side of main roads. I walked for about two and half hours and then had lunch in a Jerry’s, a new vendor of fast food that I hadn’t patronised before. I like these chains with names – Jerry’s, Denny’s, Wendy’s, (even) Arbie’s – it’s all nice and personal. I wonder if the original owners are out there somewhere, and if they all meet up sometimes and reminisce about their first restaurant. I suspect not (nb. this all stems from wondering if M. Bricolage and M. Meuble knew each other in France, a reference undoubtedly lost on 90% of people reading this. Sorry.).

After lunch I headed on in a more reflective mood. It was so simple to know where I was going (especially now that I have the GPS device loaded with US maps) that I could reflect a bit more on what I was seeing. For a start, the scenery kept repeating itself. We’re talking about a 12-14 mile strip of land here, and it kinda goes: recently built housing estate (houses extremely big, and bland) –strip mall (made up of a combination of 2-3 chain fast food outlets, a chain supermarket, a chain home improvement store, a chain office supplies store and a chain pharmacy) – older housing (apartment buildings, the odd run of what the English would call terraced houses). I counted 5 McDonalds directly on my route, and another couple I could see from where I walked. Today was the first day that I have seen really BIG people.

The other thing I noticed was that all the new housing, and sometimes the old, had absolutely no services within walking distance. Now I know I should not be surprised about this – we are constantly reading about such a situation in our very common European critiques of America – but it was interesting to see the new housing estates, all of which are billed as ‘Communities’, going up without any sort of community added value being built into them i.e. local grocery stores, or playgrounds, or communal areas. Instead, many of the ‘Communities’ are in fact entered by one road which does its best to say ‘Keep out unless you live here’ by having kinda faux gates at their entrance. Many times I was reminded of Neal Stephenson’s vision of the near future as portrayed in Snow Crash. Of course, it’s impossible for me to tell if these new neighbourhoods (‘Communities’!) are as ethnically isolated as Stephenson envisages them, but with the rest of the landscape of malls fitting into his blueprint I found myself constantly asking, who lives here, who lives there…

Anyway, I eventually left the main roads and spent a very pleasant last 45 minutes taking the back streets to David’s place in Hyattsville. Sun out, leafy suburbs. In a cutting edge experiment I decided to see what mood my iPod thought I was in and got my headphones on with the music set to shuffle. The results are as follows:

Queens of the Stone Age – Everybody Knows That You’re Insane (taken literally, this was a rather inauspicious start. I prayed that Carly Simon would not come up next)
Quantic Soul Orchestra – Follow Me (ok, good choice. Dave, of course, will have to follow this route soon)
Seu Jorge – Don’t (extremely interesting, as I couldn’t remember listening to this before. He sings in English, which totally threw me. Very nice)
Wilco – Candy Floss (off Summerteeth, very Wilsonian pop from great band. Got me smiling)
Archie Shepp – Invocation (one of the best things about iPod shuffle – this is some 30 seconds of poetry off ‘Attica Blues’ where Archie raps about being a tree or something. Groovy)
Common – The Corner (utilising the break from the Temptations’ ‘Superstar’. Very nice to hear a bit of hip-hop following Archie. iPod doing a nice job at this point)
Matthew Herbert – Sugar (ah, Herbert in his educational phase. Difficult to listen to as it was made from the sounds of a billion bottles of Pepsi being opened (probably), I resolved not to bow to multinational drinks corporations and their perfidious ways and avoid fizzy pop for the rest of the day)
Kings of Convenience – The Girl from Back Then (very Norwegian pleasantness after the Herbert madness)
DJ Shadow – Diss Me (in which the Shadow unearths some truly appalling rapping and mucks around with that tune from Reservoir Dogs I can’t remember. Hip-hop representing again, came on at exactly the same time as two blokes walked past in some hip-hop bling finery)
Brian Wilson – On a holiday (a sublime segue from the iPod, total American pop)
Doves – Black and White Town (this was the perfect end to my experiment – a pop tune about changing (and homogenizing) city landscapes from an album concerned with the same. iPod shuffle eh? Marvellous.)

Er, yeah. That was how my day ended, walking with music. The sun was out, my tan is back up to acceptable levels and I feel up for more walking. Tomorrow I walk from Hyattsville to Georgetown and I’m ready for it. Might try and keep the journal entry shorter though. More thoughts from today will find their way to the Project section, and hopefully soon. In the meantime, we might be off to the supermarket. Two meals of fast food must be remedied with something healthier…

Stuart                                   Have a comment? Please sign the guestbook