No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
Lin Yutang
On to my next adventure…
I need a good walk.
I don’t need to walk for a country mile, no, I need a long walk. I mean more than a ramble on a sunny autumn afternoon, or a long day hike. I need a trail. Something I can walk day after day, to find the rhythm of my life again.
I’m not trying to say that anything material or spiritual is motivating me. It’s not a problem with relationships either. It’s something inside. It’s like an itch that can’t easily be scratched, an ache of the soul, a longing for the trail. If feels like a primal need, I need to take a bite out of life.
I don’t need anything or anyplace special for my long walk. It doesn’t have to have special scenery either. I mean a view is always appreciated, but I am a “flat-lander”, I grew up here in the midwest where there are no mountains, and precious few hills. About the only terrain relief outside of gently rolling hills are the river valleys.
hike a parkway? a canal?
I decided on a moderately difficult challenge to reestablish my bonafides as a hiker. It’s more than flat enough for a plains type Monster, there’s little elevation change to overly stress me. I won’t get into proper shape overnight, so it was important to pick a trail with lots of public access, and this trail meets that goal as well.
I’ll just take little bites of the trail until I’m full!
The concept is to hike the entire Hennepin Canal Parkway Trail in Illinois. The canal starts on the Illinois River just outside the thriving metropolis of Bureau Junction, IL – population 279. The canal’s conclusion is either at the Rock River near Colona, IL, or at it’s other conclusion at the Mississippi River just outside of Rock Island. Colona, at population 5,021, is close to twenty times larger than Bureau Junction, but still it’s a pretty modest village for sitting at the entrance/conclusion of canal.
And yes, the two conclusions thing confused me at first too. The canal really does end at the Rock River in Colona, but it picks up again, for a very short stretch, from the south side of the Rock River near Moline (north bank) and/or Milan (south bank). The canal then parallels the Rock for something like three miles until it empties into the Mississippi in Rock Island.
One, two, buckle my shoe…
I’ll be starting at the Mississippi River in Rock Island, just to be sure I’m hiking the whole thing. In fact I plan to start my hike beyond the terminus of the Hennepin Canal Trail, which pulls up just short of the Mississippi. I’ll walk my walk from the Mississippi River, dipping a toe (or hiking pole) in the Mississippi at Sunset Park in Rock Island, Illinois; a town made famous by the Blues Brothers.
Officially it’s a “training hike”, but I’m already checking for local attractions and eateries near the trail. I’ve already found some deep dish pizza I’d like to try, but I’ll have to shy away from culinary attractions to an extent, I need to be down to 260 lbs for one of my planned activities on my upcoming cruise.
Oh, I didn’t tell you about the cruise I’ve got in the works? I’m going on an Alaska in 2024. I turned 60 this year, it’s time to get serious about checking some things off my personal bucket list.
There’s no time like today…
We do not remember days, we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese
