Such interesting people in the world

Walking update: March 26, 4.7 miles from the Saliz Pass just past the 30 mile marker on 180 to a convenient turnout just before the 26 mile marker. I didn't bring a dog - it's hard enough dodging death yourself on the winding road, without also having to prevent your best friend being flattened. We dawdled quite a bit on this stretch, peering down into Saliz Canyon at houses and things we never knew were there before. One in particular was fascinating - two houses, a large barn, pipe rail fencing (not cheap) and possibly a million dollars in vehicles parked all over the place in various states of repair and disrepair, from enormous pieces of road building equipment to antique trucks and cars. This is what passes for entertainment around here - hours spent speculating outloud about who owns a piece of property, who they might have bought it from, how much they paid, what they're doing with it, where they got their money, who they might be related to or married to, what you might have heard about the state of said marriage...

On the one hand, it's kind of awful, and on the other, I think it's related to your relationship with the landscape, the one you automatically develop when you live in a rural place. As soon as you meet someone, you have to physically place them in your physical landscape. When you meet people in the city, you mentally place them in your mental landscape, or at least I did, but out here real estate is the key to everything.

Haven't walked this week. Got sick, which is something I hardly ever do, but it's given me plenty of time to navigate my way around Spikebot Weekly, the blog of an extremely fascinating person in Australia who may be starting a Walk of her own, and I assure you it will be a lot more interesting than mine. Go to http://www.sexinthesuburbs.info/wordpress/ and you'll see what I mean. On her site you'll find, among many other things, links to pages about other walkers, including a ninety year old guy who's walked, so far, 137 of the 150 or so suburbs of Sydney, Australia, and a mathemetician who accomplished the same thing Caleb Smith did, walked all the streets in New York, but in about four months, at a pace of about 4-5 miles hours, once walking 48 miles in a single day, or so he claims, and keeping track of every step with a pedometer. I'm guessing he didn't take many photographs. Which just goes to show, there are no rules but the ones you make up for yourself, which is how the rest of life should be but usually isn't.