One Road, Four States, Twenty Miles, My Two Feet....

Years back I read �We� by Charles Lindbergh.
I asked my Dad why Lindbergh spent the majority of the book on his �boring� early years, his training and the things leading up to his historic trans-Atlantic flight, which is all I really wanted to read about.
Dad said that maybe it was because Lindy wanted to place greater emphasis on the events that created him, the formative years that set him up for The Spirit of St. Louis - showing that his life wasn�t just about the glory, but the planning and tedium that precede greatness.
Ohhh, wisdom stuff.
I walked a 20-mile stretch of road last weekend passing through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania - not the North Atlantic, but a feat none-the-less.
And true to Lindy�s example, the seeds of success were sown long before the reaping of triumph.
Can I copyright that?
I�d noticed the four state�s proximity years back, poking at the idea from time to time on the Internet - a great research resource.
I went online to map out my route and I was also able to track down a campground I could stay at the night before the hike. It�s incredible the great mapping sites out there. You can even scope out satellite views, to check your intended path�s geography and congestion.
You can almost zoom in close enough to see the black helicopters (and flamingos) They have all over the place. Except that they�re using stealth, making them invisible.
But along with the logistical preparation comes physical preparation - something I�ve typically been pretty good at.
Some folks in my Scout troop thought I was too skinny. On my first backpacking trek, a 50-miler, it got down to ten degrees, I was the smallest kid in my crew and more than half the hikers quit.
I didn�t.
I wasn�t skinny - I was fit and had trained for weeks beforehand, walking around the neighborhood with a 70-pound backpack
As I�ve heard said in the military, �The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.�
So I tried to get all my ducks in a row and did some long runs before heading up the Appalachians to walk four states.
Still, there�s a strange duality. �To fail to plan is to plan to fail,� according an old Scouting saw. But �all planning is bunk on first contact,� quoth Murphy�s Laws of Combat.
My feeling, and experience, is that flexibility is very important but it also pays massively to nail down the variables you can beforehand - because once you get out there you�ll face issues you never even knew existed.
And a lot of the preparation goes into increasing flexibility - I might be looking for a motel, but I�ve got a tent in the trunk just in case. I might be planning on only going twenty miles, but I�ll train to go even father if I need to.
And in the end it turned out I needed to.
But that�s next week�s column. In the meantime check out my blog for some photos: jderrickstar.blogspot.com.
After I got back I told my Mom about the trek. She didn�t miss a beat. I guess after 23 years my folks have gotten used to phone calls about skydiving, the broken down bicycle, that midnight trip to the ER�.