Hike

I am usually rather obsessive about checking that my keys and wallet are on my person when leaving a building, room, chair, or any given two-square-foot area. This fact makes it all the more annoying that all my faculties broke down yesterday, such that I found myself in Reston, with my keys in Crystal City, wondering how to get home without being able to start or even enter my car.

Great ideas usually come to me when faced with such adversities. Yesterday I had only lousy ones, so I decided to walk home from the Park & Ride. It is only 4.5 miles or so, but I was in work shoes, long pants, had my backpack, and it was 124.3 degrees outside. The W&OD bike path is probably as close to a straight shot as one can wish for, so I set out on a journey, not unlike the Incredible Journey, though maybe a lower budget version without pets and Michael J. Fox. Here is how it broke down by the mile markers:

• 17 – A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
• 17.5 – Clearly, the mile markers need to be recalibrated, for I’ve certainly
  walked several miles by this point. Worked out a strategy for getting to work the next day without a cab ride or 4.5 mile walk.
• 18 – Visited first 7-11. No salad dressing to be found. Bought blue Gatorade.
• 19 – Rabbit.
• 19.5 – Visited second 7-11. Bought salad dressing.
• 20.5 – Local band plays “American Band” and “Pride and Joy” as I walk by, as part of a Thursday night concert series. Herndon has a Thursday night concert series?
• 21 – Walked into a tree.

Then I broke into my house and collapsed.