Saturday, January 26, 2013

Walking to Rivendell by J L Wilson

A long time ago I read The Spandau Diaries by Albert Speer (brief history lesson: he was a Nazi and was held under house arrest for decades following his trial for crimes against humanity).

It was a fascinating book and one thing I remembered from it (and I read this a LONG time ago) was that he had a limited amount of space in which to exercise. So he walked around the garden. He counted his steps and calculated how many steps it took to make a mile.

And he walked to many far away locations. He walked to China, to Spain, to Brazil. He set a goal and he walked. It helped pass the time for him and it made his walks into something he did not from boredom but because he looked forward to doing it.

I recently read about a group of women who are Hobbit admirers who decided to walk the various routes from the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. They have all the mileage posted on a website, and I checked it out. It's 397 miles to travel with Bilbo from Bag End to Rivendell.

I think I can do that. So I'm going to start keeping track of my mileage. I already track all my steps, so it's just a matter of translating that into miles. Every lap around the mall, every day out around the block (when it gets warmer. Sorry, it's below zero here now), will take me one step closer to Rivendell.

Can't wait to see it!


For more info about the mileage, check this link.

4 comments:

Margo Hoornstra said...

Nice way to turn an ordinary activity into something special.

Jannine Gallant said...

I like this. Maybe I'll walk to someplace tropical. Tired of the snow.

Barbara Edwards said...

I think I'll try this one myself. I might even add my bike miles for that long trek to Fairbanks, Alaska.
thanks for sharing

Anonymous said...

I started this several years ago, but I'm afraid I never made it out of the Shire. Perhaps I'll try again this year, now that you've reminded me. :)