Chris Arnade Walks the World

In my sixty years of traveling, spanning three different careers and many conventions, I’d never been to Las Vegas. That was mostly intentional, because if given a choice between something hyped as premium, and anything lesser, I’ll choose the lesser.

New Jersey, Snapping Turtles, and a great book. Northeastern New Jersey is part of New York City in everything but name. It's culturally, physically, and economically bound to the city, only removed by the Hudson River, but tethered to it by bridges, tunnels, and a shared history, like a sidecar being pulled along.

Enough solitude to read history Half way through my first day’s hike, from Ulm to Oberfahlheim, I realized this was going to be a lonely trip. While I was passing through a village every few miles, there was nobody around, except in cars zooming past me, or if lucky, at the single open bakery where they would jump out, get their bread, and then quickly drive off.

I’m fortunate to have plenty of free time, so when at home, resting in a McDonald’s, waiting in airports, or on planes, I use it to read, or when walking, listening to books1. I walk to learn, which is why I read, since each is a different way to do that. The Metis versus Techne split2 described by James Scott, although there are plenty of other terms to describe experiential versus formal learning.

It was an ugly moment in an otherwise charming town, which made it all the more memorable. It wasn’t much, just a drunk guy being weird in a bar, hardly a unique thing, but who he was and how it played out was. I’d only been in North Platte for ten hours and was already charmed by it — the tranquil get-things-done functionality, the wide-open low-slung beauty of the surrounding plains, the non-ironic kitschiness.

I knew what I would find in the East Colfax McDonald’s when a block away, while walking between Colorado’s Capitol building and the beautiful Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. I was walking in the middle of the road because it was six a.m., empty except for scattered orange safety cones, and the sidewalks dotted with people sleeping in blanket nests. Also, if I looked just right, I could glimpse the Rocky Mountains behind me and I wanted to see big snow-capped majestic mountains.

(While I've aimed for accuracy, I've changed names and identifying details to protect people who shared their stories without fully realizing I'd publish them. All dialogue is reconstructed from memory and contemporaneous notes, which can be spotty at the best of times, which this wasn't.) I boarded the six-thirty a.m. bus to Davenport, which reeked of weed, with two Nebraska state troopers searching for weed1.

I call the two women pictured above my Seoul girlfriends. They work at the 24시 (twenty-four-hour restaurant) I eat at every day, and when I come in, they immediately start to giggle, flash me big thumbs up, and sing out “thank you, thank you” as the woman on the right escorts me to my table with a big smile.

(I’ve written eleven prior posts about Japan: From Tokyo to Takasaki, A retreat to Niigata, A pointless little Japan story, From Akashina to Fuji, Walking Fuji, Playgrounds and manhole covers, From Fukuoka to Nagasaki, Burnout in Japan, Walking Hokkaido, In praise of Japanese small, Walking Kumamoto) Part of the reason I walk is to maximize happenstance, and on this trip that paid off in spades, because I found the city of Satsumasendai in Kyushu.

(This is my fifth long walk in Japan.