I find transition times difficult. Going from a known entity into a lesser known one can provoke some anxiety. I often feel a bit uneasy even leaving my house. Once I’m in my car and on the way, I’m usually fine. But in this case, I was transitioning from being quite active to being relatively inactive in a split second. I was concerned about returning to my empty house in Vermont and again coming face-to-face with the demise of my marriage.

I tried to find a balance between taking time to transition and enjoy the drive back east with getting back in a timely fashion to have my foot properly cared for. I wanted to stop and visit people whom I had met over these last few years of hiking as well as a long time friend of mine who lives in Minnesota. I decided to keep my stops to those who were within a 10 or 15 minute drive of my route. I was amazed to see how many of them there were. I knew I would not have met all of these wonderful people had not been for the loss of my marriage, and while I can’t really compare the two, rather than focusing on the loss, I was able to be grateful for the new people and experiences that came into my life. I was pleased I was getting better at focusing on the positive rather than feeling swamped by the loss.

I had a wonderful visit with my friend Susan in Minnesota. I definitely consider her my elder and I learn from her every time we interact. After that I visited some people in Wisconsin who I had met while hiking the Ice Age Trail. I even met one person whom I had never met before, but who had generously donated so I was able to get the new iPad. Since he lived right near my route, I stopped and was honored to meet this generous man.

Driving across the country on crutches was interesting. When I hike I definitely find different character traits more prevalent in certain parts of the country. Many of those I met in the rural Northwest seem to value their independence and more solitary lives. They were less apt to strike up conversations with me or offer me food or water on the trail. In contrast, a multitude of people in the Midwest seemed eager to go out of their way to connect with me. As an example, when I was getting out of my car to pump gas or go into a store in Montana or North Dakota, I had people asking if they could pray for me. Yet these same people seldom assisted me as I struggled to pump gas or get into the store on crutches. This changed dramatically when I reached Eastern Minnesota and continued all across Wisconsin. People went out of their way to help me, insisting on pumping my gas. Even children as young as 10 would run in front of me to hold the bathroom or store door for me. I’d like to say the people in my home state of Vermont were just as friendly, but I have to admit that in general they fell somewhere in the middle of the two. They did go out of their way to open doors or help me with the gas, but there was a little more of that New England reticence. This trip confirmed what I had first encountered while hiking the Ice Age Trail; midwestern nice really does exist. Interestingly enough, when I researched it on the Internet I learned that to some extent it originated from the cultures of the people that immigrated to that area and that sometimes people see it as a passive aggressive thing. In my experience, it was always welcoming and the kindness these Midwesterners offered me contributed to my internal healing.

I also decided I would stop in Chicago and visit my eldest brother and his wife. We have never been close and in fact, he treated me badly when I was a child. He has some remorse and I’ve been doing my part to try to mend that relationship. It has not been easy but it has meaning for those little parts of me who always wanted my big brother to care about me.

He does have an interest in nature and took me to a local river where the herons hang out. As I stood there watching them fish, I marveled at the tenacity of nature, able to adapt to changes humans throw at them. I thought of the importance of maintaining wild lands. Having driven through Roosevelt National Park I sent out a prayer of gratitude to Teddy Roosevelt for preserving so much public land and setting the stage for the later development of the national park system. I hope we have it for many years into the future.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that driving up to my house wasn’t as hard as it has been in the previous few years. I actually found it a bit welcoming to settle into my house. I wondered if this was because the divorce had been finalized just before I left so I now knew I would have the house and Mark no longer had any say in it. After being in the arid west for so long, I felt relieved to again be surrounded by so much green in nature although the amount of it surrounding my house was daunting. The golden rod was over my solar panels!

When I got off the PNT, I wasn’t sure I would finish it. But as soon as I walked into my house, I knew I really did want to do the trail and would return to complete it. In the meantime, I was determined to keep myself from falling into a depressive hole. I pulled out a special jigsaw puzzle and spent a few days working it while I went through a five month stack of mail.

I decided to just pick one or two things at a time to focus on. The first two were getting my foot taken care of and trying to get insurance. I made way too many phone calls and when I saw how hard and expensive it would be to insure the house, I decided to let it go without worrying. As if to confirm my decision to not worry about what felt out of my control I got a call from Corinna telling me that my digital recorder had been found in Bill’s truck! I was so glad I had not spent time worrying about it and thrilled that it was now on its way back to me via the United States Postal Service.

I finally got to see the doctor for my foot and while an x-ray did not confirm breaks on my right foot we still put it in an orthopedic boot. It took an MRI to show the three brakes in my left foot. My next challenge would be to figure out how to stay off my feet enough for them to heal.