I walk for health reasons, not because I enjoy it. I'd rather be reading in a comfy chair. However, Neil King, Jr., American Rambler had me thinking about making a walking pilgrimage.
His descriptions were beautifully crafted. I want to see it besides experience it imaginatively. He also philosophizes as he walks and at one point he realizes that he is privileged. Privileged to be a white, middle-aged, male. True. It's still a man's world. As a female, I would never walk alone from DC to Manhattan. If you were a young black man, the police would have been called.
Many times, Neil visited cemeteries. Here is a descriptive example of his writing:
You enter a different time when you step into a cemetery. That mix of finality with our attempts at eternity faintly amuses, seeing how the older the place, the clearer it is that finality wins. I smiled at the toppled marker that boasted how the beloved buried there would never be forgotten.
This was a ramble, meaning he wasn't walking a straight path. He meticulously plotted the cites he wanted to visit and where he would spend the night. He visit revolutionary battlegrounds, civil war memorabilia, and people. His descriptions are worth the walk, the time, his, and the reader's.
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