A solo walk from Half Moon Bay to Calistoga: a journey of movement, meaning and gratitude
I always feel like a dork when I see an ad featuring The Cool Old Guy. You know the kind of ad I’m talking about. It’s directed at senior citizens and might be for life insurance, a food supplement, annuities or whatever. The Cool Old Guy is always rugged-looking with a svelte torso and fabulous gray hair. If he’s not wearing a wetsuit and about to go surfing in Maui, he’s climbing a cliff face in some canyon or kayaking with a whale.
I feel like a dork because I’m just as old as The Cool Old Guy, but I’m not svelte or fabulous in any way, and I don’t surf anywhere or climb cliffs or go near whales. Adventure is not my middle name. (It’s Daniel.)
That doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally engage in reasonably sane activity that’s fun and a little bit out of the ordinary for a 71-year-old like me. But my idea of a special good time may seem unappealing to many normal people my age.
For instance, I like to do extra-long walks now and then. Now, I’m not talking about month-long hikes in the mountains or wilderness. I’m mostly just talking about a day or two of walking on smooth, flat trails or sidewalks through civilized areas with lots of people and plenty of grocery stores. And I’m certainly not talking about camping—any stop for the night on these walks is spent in a hotel, not a sleeping bag.
That kind of thing might sound boring, weird, or pedestrian (pun intended) to you. But for me it’s kind of fun. It’s active and healthy, and it doesn’t push any of my envelopes. I like my envelopes, and, most of the time, unlike The Cool Old Guy, I keep way inside them.
But last July I decided to do something that would push my good-activity envelope a bit. So, I packed a knapsack, left Sarasota, flew across the country to San Francisco and traveled by bus to Half Moon Bay, a nice beach town about 30 miles to the south.
The next morning, after staying overnight in (of course) a comfortable hotel in the middle of town, I got on a trail at Half Moon Bay Beach and started my planned northward trip: a solo, five-day, 85-mile walk, first, along the coast back up to San Francisco, and then—after a ferry ride from San Francisco to Vallejo—from Vallejo to Napa and up the length of Napa Valley to Calistoga.
As a matter of physical exertion, this walk would be something different for me. I’d never done a five-day walk anywhere, anytime—not even close. Two days had been the extent of my longest prior walks.
Nevertheless, I didn’t feel like I was venturing way outside my comfort zone. Aside from some hip arthritis, I was in reasonably decent condition. And I wasn’t going to pump my arms and powerwalk all the way to Calistoga; I’d walk at a pleasant pace. So, I felt that the odds of a successful, comfortable journey were reasonably good as long as I didn’t hurt myself from doing something risky along the way.
Those reasonably good odds didn’t fill me with absolute confidence, because I knew only too well that “something risky” for someone in his seventies encompasses 99.9% of all human motions. At my age, nearly every routine movement is dangerous. (Take it from Jay Leno, a fellow septuagenarian. He said that one time he nearly incapacitated himself by making the mistake of yawning and turning his head at the same time.) But I promised myself that I’d be careful, so I felt pretty good as I started out at Half Moon Bay Beach.
I also felt good because the route ahead wasn’t completely alien to me; I wasn’t scared of it. I’d walked from Half Moon Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge several times before. And I’d walked from Calistoga to St. Helena once. But I’d never walked the rest of the route. So, geographically, this trip was both familiar and different, which was kind of nice.
As it turned out, the journey was a blend of the awesome and the ordinary. On one hand, I encountered sheer beauty and wonder, natural or man-made, every single day. The California coast, with its ocean waves and mists, its rocks and cliffs and its trees and beaches was stunningly scenic. San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge were spectacular. And the Napa vineyards and mountains were absolutely gorgeous.
On the other hand, during much of my walk, I came across a lot of things that weren’t outwardly beautiful or wonderful. By necessity, much of my route was via nondescript residential and commercial districts, side streets, and shoulders of highways. These places were dominated by unremarkable homes, office buildings, gas stations, retail stores, fast-food restaurants, warehouses and vehicle traffic.
And yet, the more I thought about it (and I had a lot of time to think during this walk), I saw beauty and wonder in those places, too.
On a macro level, it was the beauty and wonder of a magnificent nation going about its daily business. A nation whose people and systems produce abundance, convenience, employment, freedom, and innovation on a vast scale. I saw that in the busy workers, the rows of houses, the enormous trucks, the countless stores, the endless grapevines and the driverless Waymo taxis that seemed to be everywhere and taken for granted in San Francisco.
On a micro level, it was the beauty and wonder in the human kindness of persons I encountered along the way. For example:
- The amateur naturalist, who invited me to glimpse, through his telescope, the seals lounging on the shore at Moss Beach.
- The California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, who saw me walking on the shoulder of a very busy Highway 29 in Napa County. He stopped to see whether I needed any help. Then, after learning my situation, he rode out ahead to scout my planned route and returned 15 minutes later to report and discuss what he’d observed, including a possible alternative way and some potential safety hazards.
- The staff of a St. Helena hotel, who gave me a personal, handwritten note of welcome and encouragement for the final day of my walk.
In other words, I had a blast on this walk. It was a huge delight for my mind and soul. And I finished it with no major bones broken, which is always a plus. I thanked God for my ability to walk and to sense all the beauty and wonder around me.
I also thanked Him for something else: the gift of precious time to do the walk. And it embarrasses me to think about that.
Why? Because for years I put off this walk. For much too long, I delayed experiencing its moments.
The idea for the walk wasn’t something that had just popped into my head in July. Not long after my last walk to the Golden Gate Bridge in 2019, it occurred to me that a longer walk all the way to Calistoga might be fun, too. And so, the idea for my “Long Walk” was born years before I got on the trail to actually do it.
I’d postponed the execution of the Long Walk for good reasons—or so I told myself. These included work responsibilities, pandemic restrictions, a move of my residence to another state, a lot of out-of-town travel and a transition from work to retirement. Those reasons sound reasonable, but I’m convinced that they were mostly exaggerated or fake. The prime reason for the delay in doing the walk was my inertia or laziness.
Talk about “something risky.” God, in His wisdom, has allotted to me a certain number of life-on-earth moments. I don’t know how many. All I know is that (a) I’ve used up a lot of them, (b) I may not have many healthy ones left, and (c) accordingly, it’s extremely risky at my age (or any age, really) to procrastinate about doing any good thing—whether it’s visiting old friends, helping a neighbor in distress, getting rid of a bad habit or adopting a good one, volunteering for a worthy cause, saying “I love you,” or pushing a good-activity envelope. Who knows if I’ll have tomorrow to do the good thing I’m thinking about today.
And so, I’m embarrassed that I was so foolish to put off my walk for so long. With my next push of an envelope, please God, I’ll do better.
