The Gentle Art of Wandering – BionicOldGuy

I loved this book by David Ryan. He lives in New Mexico and volunteers to find archaeological sites for the US Bureau of Land Management. So it’s no surprise that the book opens with accounts of his wanderings around the local area, finding important sites and artifacts, including a 10,000-year-old Folsom Man arrowhead. By the end of the chapter, I was convinced that his ideas about wandering would be great in a fascinating area like this.

But what about a more urban area? He answers this in the next chapter by describing a trip to Los Angeles, better known for freeways than wandering on foot. But on one visit there, he finds a theme. Before cars were king, the Los Angeles area was served by an intercity transit system nicknamed « the big red cars. » It turns out that many stairways were placed in hilly areas to provide access to transit stops. The transit system is gone, many of the lines are buried under city streets. But many of the stairs remain. So he made it his mission to find as many people on foot as possible during a visit, and found not only the stairs, but many interesting places near them. The book continues in this fashion, describing various areas in the US. And it’s not all walking, he also shows how to spice up car journeys this way.

It’s always helpful to have a theme for the adventure. It would be obvious to me rail tracks. In the US, we’ve converted thousands of miles of abandoned railroad tracks into trail systems that function as linear parks and are great for walking and biking. I visited all in my area, but there are many further afield in California that could add interest to visits to other cities. And I would definitely like to make this a priority when visiting other parts of the US.

David also has a website with resources and stories about his latest adventures.