Sauntering Back to Life

So, uh, it's been a minute. How's everyone doing? How have the last 2 years been treating you? Actually, 

don't answer that. If its been life-affirming and you learned how to make bread, good for you. If it has sucked and you are still processing the jarring changes that were foist upon us, I'm right there with you. Either way, I only mention it by way of explanation as to why this, a travel blog, has been dormant. To give the short answer, not only did the world shut down but on May 8, 2020, I also lost my dream job, the one that facilitated so many of my wanderings. In the time since, I have been trying to regain my footing and figure out the next step. There have been a couple of trips here and there, including a new country- Hi, Republic of Maldives aka Country #119, welcome to the club- but I just have not been motivated to write anything. 

That needs to change. Two years of moping is one year, eleven months too many. With that and a birthday coming up, I decided to shake it up and do something I'd been wanting to do ever since I heard about it many many years ago. I would be doing the Great Saunter. Although this may sound like the name of a dance move or a second rate magician, it is actually an annual event going back to 1982 involving a fair amount of sauntering. As in 32 miles in one day's worth of sauntering.  

This event, which is essentially a one day walk around the entire perimeter of Manhattan began with conservationist Cy A Adler's book Walking Manhattan’s Rim, the Great Saunter.  He wanted to inspire people to get out and walk, while also pushing for more waterfront access. His cause caught on and led to his founding Shorewalkers, a non-profit dedicated to the very same aims. 

It's fair to say that Cy succeeded. The Great Saunter has been continuously growing in popularity, celebrating its 35th year by reaching the 2500 registrant max weeks before the actual event.  

Among those 2500 were my sister and my friend, Susie. The fact that both agreed so easily and eagerly for this boded really well. Both are in great shape (the sister does these insane paramilitary mud slog Spartan Races and Susie does 5k for fun, in costume even!) and are fantastic company so the 12 hr walk was going to fly by. 

Only as the day got closer, some causes for concern arose. Susie, who had managed to avoid a global pandemic for 2 years, came down with Covid. My sister mentioned that she was feeling a cold coming on. Most troubling of all, the weather forecasts for May 7th were becoming increasingly grim. Overnight, I became both a virologist, trying to determine how quickly one could shed a virus and a meteorologist, studying weather radars and throwing around phrases like "stalled storm fronts". 

Meanwhile, Shorewalkers social media posts and emails started gently suggesting that perhaps we would like to add a raincoat or poncho to our ever-growing list of gameday items (along with extra socks, snacks, bandages, phone chargers, water, more snacks). I began obsessively checking NY weather forecasts and rejoicing whenever the chance of rain dropped from 100% to a mere 80%- before going right back up to 100%. At one point, Shorewalkers optimistically posted that it couldn't actually rain for 12 straight hours. Unfortunately, Mother Nature herself clearly saw this post and responded with a "Oh wood nymph, would you be so lovely as to hold my beer". 

It rained the day prior, when I arrived in NY. It rained the entire night leading up to the Saunter. And yes, it rained the entire 11 hours it took us to walk the trail. Not content with just rain, the forecast also called for 40 mph wind gusts. Now, I don't actually know if those materialized but if you ask me if was windy enough to cause a cheapo red poncho to flail about and cause its wearer to look like a crazed Little Red Riding Hood/ Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate hybrid, the answer is absolutely. But more on that later.

Sadly, Susie's Covid not only persisted but it also got a hold of her family. That combined with the looming battle of the elements caused her to bow out. My sister, who had defeated her cold and I, had flown up from Miami for this so we were doing it, crap weather be damned. 

Initially, it was just a light drizzle. We set off at 6:30am for the short walk to Fraunces Tavern, which acts as both starting point and finish line. Along the way, we passed Fearless Girl , an ode to female empowerment and took it as a good sign. This plus the fact that this was the first time we had seen her free from touristic hordes called for a photo stop.

Note the optimistic pair of sunglasses perched upon my head.

By the time we reached the Tavern, a crowd was already gathered, collecting their commemorative pins and hats and preparing for the day ahead. It was later reported that out of the 2500 registrants, approximately 1500 showed up, which is still an impressive number considering the dire forecast.

In case you are wondering if there a man dressed like Gandolf standing behind me, yes, yes there is. 

When the 7am start time arrived, we were all expecting some kind of grand gesture: a starting pistol, trumpet flare, ceremonial horn blowing, something... Instead, there was a volunteer saying "Ok, you guys can start.", followed by confused looks from the attendees. "No, really, there is no official start. Just go." No movement. "Um, ok, I'm declaring that this is the official start. Please, go, start walking." 

That did the trick. We set off, en masse, towards the West Side Highway, which we would follow all the way up to the northern tip of the island. This has not always been the case, as the first Saunter reportedly involved climbing fences, crossing through abandoned lots and other obstacles of dubious legality. Now, thanks in large part to Cy and his staff, there is a continuous well-maintained walkway.

Those first hours were spent making mental notes of places I wanted to return to, given more time and better weather. 

Once we hit the 5 mile mark, we had our first encounter with the superheroes. Technically, I believe they are called volunteers, but for people to give of their time to root on the Saunterers and provide us with snacks, to me, is the stuff of superheroes and no one is going to convince me otherwise. 

The mile five heroes gave us granola bars. Mind you, I had enough snacks in my backpack to keep a ravenous family of squirrels content through the most brutal of winters but due to the increasingly shitty weather, I could not fathom removing my poncho to dig through said backpack. That granola bar was perfectly timed. It also brought with it a troubling realization. Did I mention that the temperature was in the low 40's? It was. That combined with the generally wet nature of the day and lack of gloves, led to totally numb hands. Have you ever tried to open the packaging of a granola bar with wet, numb hands? Those things are impenetrable!!  I gnawed at it like an angry badger but the nutty treat eluded me. Eventually, my sister managed to break through but the problems did not end there.

Somewhere around the 10 mile mark, we stopped to use a public bathroom. Specifically, we went to seek out the hand blower, which had a longer line than the toilets themselves. Since we were there already, I decided I might as well use the facilities. Related question, have you ever tried to pull down very tight lycra pants with wet numb hands, all while trying not to pee on your poncho? It ain't easy. Harder still, pulling those pants back up. I literally could not feel my hands, meaning I could not grip anything. Try as I might, the pants wouldn't budge. I was either going to have to live out the rest of my life in that bathroom stall or complete the rest of the saunter ass out. At that point, I saw my sister over the bathroom door and called for help. She laughed and continued to go about her business. I stressed that I genuinely needed help. After no less than 3 rounds of "Do you really need help?" she entered my stall to help pull those suckers back up, which by this point had gotten all kinds of twisted around. When I think back to the glory of the Great Saunter, this moment will not make the highlight reel.

Our next set of heroes appeared around W125th, roughly the 10 mile mark. These came bearing apples and bottles of water. It warmed my heart, if not my hands, to get a snack that I could literally just bite into. If on my deathbed you ask me which was the best apple I ever tasted, I will tell you that it was the one that I got on the Great Saunter 2022. The water also came in handy because even though I was wearing a camelbak and carrying roughly a gallon of water on my back, the amount of sucking that infernal little tube required was more than I had in me. 

Along the way, there was a friendly professional photographer that kept popping up to take our pictures. It was through his photos that I later learned that Will Farrell was sauntering amongst us. Based on the order of the pics, it looks like he may have been maybe 15-30 minutes ahead of us. One of the things I was most looking forward to was meeting fellow saunterers. Anyone willing to spend the day circumnavigating Manhattan was clearly my people and would surely have great stories to tell. Had one of those people been Will Farrell, all the better. Unfortunately, the heads down, power through nature of this particular walk cut down significantly on the opportunities to interact with others. 

One thing that the weather could not mess up was the beauty of the trail itself. As a lifelong wannabe New Yorker, I have spent a fair amount of time in the coolest city on earth, yet this walk revealed to me so many areas I never even knew existed. As we got towards the northern part of the island, it began to look more and more bucolic. At one point, we had a rocky hill to our right and a charming little lighthouse to our left...in Manhattan!!  Who knew?

Around noon, we reached Inwood Park, the halfway point and designated lunch stop. We had been averaging around 3.3 mph and spent the morning struggling with mathematical calculations of the 'we have now completed 1/4 of the walk' and 'I think we have hit the 1/3 mark' variety.

The park was lovely and there were plenty more heroes to point the way, as this was where things began to get tricky. There was a farmer's market going on, which would have been ideal for a mid-walk picnic. There were more heroes at the lunch spot, this time offering pringles, goldfish crackers and Gatorade. The problem was that the weather had somehow managed to get even colder, windier and wetter and who wants to sit in a park under those conditions. We grabbed our snacks and soldiered on. 

There was also a very real fear that if we stopped for any extended amount of time, we might not be able to keep going. A piece of sidewalk grafitti I had seen the day before came to mind.

Another factor was a navigational one. The Shorewalkers people had sent a map along with our numbered bibs,  I had printed out point by point directions, there was a link to a google map...all things that would have helped immensely if I could stop and dig through 35 protein bars and 7 different size bandaids in my backpack to locate them or had working fingers to use my phone. None of that was happening, meaning we were at the mercy of whoever happened to be walking in front of us. 

Now that we were on the East side, it was no longer as simple as following the waterfront. Due to construction, there were turns, lot of them, which took us through the middle of the city. We sauntered through Harlem, past shopkeepers wondering why this mass of people was out strolling in this deluge. We turned left, right, up pedestrian bridges, across parking lots, all the while hoping that the people in front of us knew where they going. 

A substantial portion of this part had us walking alongside a highway. There was a usually a waist-high wall protecting us from the speeding vehicles, but you know what the wall did not protect us from? Splashing. Now, I have long defended NY'ers against the stereotype that they are rude or discourteous. I think NY'er are wonderful, they just have stuff to do and don't always have time for foolishness. However, these fucking drivers... Had it happened once, maybe twice, I could tell myself that it was an accident, but no. These fucking drivers were intentionally speeding up through the puddles, causing walls of nasty muddy water to wash over the already beleaguered saunterers. It became a damn game of Frogger, trying to time one's crossing just so between vehicles and their aquatic onslaughts. 

Somewhere around the 20 mile mark, we entered into the upper east side. It was here that we saw the first spot where we could actually stop and sit for a bit. It was a Starbucks. Anyone who knows me is aware of my disdain for Starbucks. I feel like they push out small mom and pop coffee shops out in favor of generic corporate branding. My pet name for them is 'the evil empire'. I once had a boyfriend whose car broke down in a Starbucks parking lot. He called every single person in his phone for help before resigning himself to calling me and admitting that he was, in fact, at a Starbucks. Point is in any other circumstance, I would have railed against this particular stop. However, we had now been walking for seven hours straight, I was no longer sure if my sister was kidding with her repeated invocations of Uber rides and the thought of a warm beverage was too great a siren's song. We joined the multitude of saunterers warming themselves inside while applying bandages and changing socks. To their credit, if the baristas found this behavior strange, they did not let on, cheerfully directing people into separate bathroom and coffee lines. 

While in the bathroom line, I struck up a conversation with a weary looking woman. More to herself than to me, she said "I shouldn't quit, right?" I responded in kind, speaking to us both. I said "If you were going to quit, you should have done it at mile 5. Maybe mile 10. But you have made it all the way to mile 20. You are almost 2/3 of the way there. Quitting now doesn't even make sense." Somewhat energized by this, we finished the conversation with "See you at the finish line!"

When we rejoined the saunter, it was somehow even colder and wetter than before. My poncho, which had failed in so many of the roles of a poncho- mainly the keeping dry part- was now actively trying to kill me. The hood, which stubbornly refused to stay on my head, now kept spinning around to the front and blowing squarely onto my face. Trust me, you have not lived until you have been repeatedly blinded in the middle of the street by an angry poncho. Add the frantic struggle to get your arms free so you can maybe see where you are going and you have quite the show. 

It got so frigid that I do not have a single photo from the east side. Not a one. The idea of taking my phone out and trying to work the camera with those numb fingers was enough to deter me, a serial photo taker. Yet, I can honestly say, on a certain level, I was truly enjoying this. Every mile that passed felt like a victory to me. If you would have asked me if I thought I could walk 25 miles under these circumstances, I would have said not a chance. Yet, here we were doing the most difficult saunter in the history of saunters. 

I tried to point this out to my sister, what a fantastic accomplishment this was, but she was operating on a different plane. She was being powered by anger. There was anger at the weather, at Cy A Adler and the mother that bore him and most likely at me, as well. When we passed a hero handing out oranges and announcing that we had only eight miles to go, I loudly "Woo Hoo'ed". Her response "Why the fuck are you woo hoo'ing, we thought it was six!"

Somewhere near the United Nations, a woman with the dulcet voice of Fran Drescher in the midst of an allergy attack, announced that she was joining us because the people that she had been walking with had quit. After a couple of minutes of her narration of doom "I'm cold, this is terrible, oh no, now we have to go uphill", it dawned on me that those people had most likely not quit but were instead enjoying a quiet saunter a couple of minutes behind us. The whole thing was too much for my sister, who was now power walking at a heretofore unseen speed. 

I feared things could get ugly when she asked a hero, giving directions near the lower east side, how much longer. Her response: "I'm not going to tell you that but you are close." That lady has no clue how close she came to getting smacked on the head with a gatorade bottle. The cause for her vague and troubling response was not revealed until the next day when Shorewalkers posted that due to all the construction-related reroutes, the saunter had actually ended up being 34 miles- 2 more than originally advertised!

Upon seeing the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge, I knew we were close. I cheerfully pointed this out but the guy we had been following for this portion of the walk was very precise with his language. When my sister fact checked my pronouncement, he would not concede that we were in fact close. It was not until we were blocks from Fraunces Tavern that he was willing to declare that we were truly close. 

And then there it was, eleven hours later, the finish line!!

There were heroes cheering us on, handing out certificates and taking countless pics of happy faces. We had done it!! In the end, 560 people completed the 34 mile soggy saunter and we were 2 of them!! As much as I wanted to go into the Tavern to have a celebratory drink, maybe check if the Starbucks lady had made it, the lure of dry clothes and a warm hotel room proved too tempting. The celebration was to take place at the downtown Marriott, where I and a no longer angry sister toasted our success with the mini bottles of bourbon I had packed along with all those snacks. But the where didn't matter, the fact was we had come, we had sauntered and we had conquered. 

Anyone interested in doing this next year, hit me up. Assuming the weather is better (note- short of hail and locusts, it can't actually be worse), I'm putting together a Saunter Squad and plan on doing it all over again.