Yes, you read that correctly. I walked from Fishtown, in Philadelphia, to New Hope on Sunday April 19th with a good friend. Why? Well I’ve been asking myself that ever since.

The idea was spawned about a month ago when Dan, a friend of mine since around 8th grade or so, wanted to do something special for his birthday. His birthday was yesterday, the 20th, and so to commemorate this we took Sunday, the day before, to go on a hike.

Now, we are walking sorts of people. I like a good stroll from my house to downtown Philadelphia, which can take as long as 90 minutes depending on where I am going. Thus, in a day I’ve walked or hiked as much as 10 miles, if not longer, especially when I visit Washington DC where I like to walk. But neither of us were prepared for our hike on Sunday.

We left around 8:43am. This was after Dan, who stayed on the futon, literally dragged me out of bed around 8:10 or so. See, I had not gotten to sleep until almost 3:00am, I was quite tired and found myself waking up between two beautiful women and Dan wants me to wake up and walk 30 miles…

Let’s just say that this was not my first thought upon waking, but his desire to get going included him grabbing me by the ankles and pulling me out of bed, to my chagrin and to the great amusement of those two aforementioned women.

And so our journey began…

Like I said, we left the house at 8:43am, and started walking along. The day was early on a Sunday and there were few people up and about, and we began to wake up as we walked the streets. And thisw as when I suddenly realized that we had somehow magically arrived at Disneyland:

Suffice it to say, we didn’t stop in for either rides or to worship. That would not have made good atheists of us, now would it? Plus, it would delay our arrival at New Hope, which we were hoping to get to before 7:00 that evening.

The first few hours were fine. We ate sausage in rolls, from the day before, which helped sustain our energy throughout the day. It ended up being a rather warm day, so we had to stop at a grocery store in the Feasterville area to fill our water bottles before continuing. At this time, our legs were a little sore.

We passed over many streams, creeks, and rivers along the way. And in one case we found a stranded goose on a rock who I found very amusing, and so I had to take a picture.

Eventually, we left the confines of Philadelphia, we had to dodge cars and trucks with a lack of sidewalks, and eventually we reached Churchville.

It was around this time, or shortly after, that it began to become painful. See, I had been remiss in not purchasing new shoes for the journey, and the ones I was wearing were wearing down. Thus, a few miles after Churchville my feet, ankles, and legs began to get quite sore.

It was around then that we saw this sign:

Only 10 more miles! I think, in retrospect, that the distance was rounded down, but that might just be the result of the next 10 miles hurting. But seeing that we were 2/3 done our walk, I started to feel some more energy for a little while.

Once we passed Richboro, however, there was a short time when I didn’t think I would be able to continue. I really needed better shoes. Nonetheles, I pulled it together and kept going.

Here are some things we saw along the way.

Now our legs are sore, feet are hurting, and I want to stop and take more breaks, but I keep going. During the whole trip we stopped three times. Once to stop and eat a late lunch just south of Richboro and twice after that near bodies of water just to take a break for a few minutes. After this point, however, taking a break would only make getting up more difficult.

So we walked up hills, down hills, and eventually we got within 3 miles of New Hope, and this was when it began to get very difficult. But we managed to make our way down a long hill, turned onto Main St. and finally this came into view:

The edge of town! We were almost there! We walked as far as Havana on Main St., sat across the street on the bench, and waited for Nicole to get there, via car, and then met up with some friends from college that lived in the area for dinner and a couple of drinks. Then we were driven home and I slept. And the next morning my legs were sore. Today they are almost 100%, and I am certainly glad that we made the walk.

30 miles, 9 hours and 56 minutes, 4 sore legs, and a great day!