Tuesday Voice: Grand Canyon adventure—Part 1

Why the Grand Canyon?

By James T. Carney

Why the Grand Canyon? was a question I was asking myself resentfully on the morning of March 3, 2013 as I woke up constipated and filled with fear that I was embarked on an expedition that I was not up to. I remembered the wise words of my college roommate Mo’s invocation of Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” defense when I told him years ago about my concerns about making a trip to Italy with my son’s in-laws, who were going to spend half the time with their Italian relatives who spoke only Italian,which—contrary to my sister’s bold assertion that it was readily comprehensible to any Latin scholar—was unintelligible to me. I didn’t say no to that trip and I didn’t say no to the Grand Canyon either but at that particular moment I was heartily regretting not having learned from the prior experience. Sometimes the spirit of adventure gets the better of my normal, conservative, lawyerly self.

Tuesday Voice: Walk of Hadrian’s Wall—Part 3

Last of the wall near Newcastle
[click to enlarge]

On to Newcastle

By James T. Carney

[Sequel to “From disasters onward”]

Anyway, when we got to Newcastle, we dumped our stuff in the hotel and caught the one bus (a day) which would take us to the section of the Wall where we had left off the previous day. Catching this bus was not easy because the woman in the hotel directed us to the wrong stop and the bus station operator doubted our ability to make it to the train station, where the bus we wanted would leave in the 15 minutes we had. Stonewall Jackson’s foot cavalry could not have moved faster and we caught the bus with some time to spare. This day was a rather easy hike and not terribly interesting except that my USS Border Patrol cap, which my son Dan had given me and which I was wearing, attracted the attention of three Americans—two of whom were from Arizona and worked for what was the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I thought it was appropriate to wear a Border Patrol hat because we were walking in the footsteps of the first Anglo-Saxon Border Patrol.

Walk of Hadrian’s Wall—Part 2

Birdoswald Fort

From disasters onward

By James T. Carney

[Sequel to “Thirteen years later”]

We then went on from Landercost Priory Church to Birdoswald Fort, where we encountered another disaster. We missed the last bus back to Carlisle. We were marooned in the middle of the wilderness by a Roman remains with the shop closed down by that time of day. By our good luck, another two hikers were coming from the opposite direction and landing there at the same time. They had a mobile phone with them and called a taxi, which dropped them off and put us on the major bus line, where we caught a bus back to Carlisle only to face more disasters the next day.

Tuesday Voice: Walk of Hadrian's Wall—Part 1

[click to enlarge]

Thirteen years later

By James T. Carney

I first saw Hadrian's Wall in 1996 when I drove around England with some friends on an eleven-day trip. Driving north from York, we saw the old forts at Chesters and Housesteads before turning south to Penrith. I felt greatly disappointed as we left the Wall without further exploration and vowed to come back. The next summer my older boy, Jim, and I made an abortive effort to walk the length of the Wall but on the third day of the trip, just as we started to get to the most interesting part of the Wall (which really only exists in the middle portion of the 80-Roman-mile length), his feet gave out. He then told me that he had been having foot problems all summer—something which I would have preferred to know earlier. So our trip ended in disarray. Like McArthur, I vowed to return. Thirteen years later, in September 2010, I did. Along with my good friend Rich Gainar—from the old U.S. Steel Pension Fund days—we walked the length of the Wall from Browness on the Solway to Wallsend outside of Newcastle.