The WALKING podcast

This is the Season 1 Finale of the WALKING podcast, and possibly the last one period. I read some prepared remarks at the ad break, while sitting on a stump, on a cliff, as the sun went down. This week's walk is brought to you by an anonymous stranger, in memory of Bear and Elmer, two good dogs who loved walks. Thank you to everyone who listened. That was nice. See you at #FootForceDelta.   

"Sometimes finding a key is not the start of a grand adventure, but the end of one." - Jon Mooallem, right now. Friends, I bumbled my way into a high-intensity snafu while recording the walk this morning. A boatload of genuine drama ensued, relative to our typical walks together, at least. It was so bad that I felt obligated to initiate the WALKING podcast's first-ever "take two." And so, here it...

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at Mooallem SuperValue ™ (That's my private nickname for myself when I'm working hard to meet deadlines, and when I feel less like a human writer than a scrupulously-optimized,   prose-production corporation—you know, checking facts and cashing checks, etc.) I was working so hard, finishing a big magazine story and the book simultaneously, that I didn't have a...

I continue to be confused as to whether anyone reads these summaries. Anyway: It's been almost four years since we moved to the island from San Francisco. Two or three nights after we moved, my wife and I took the ferry into Seattle to attend a dinner for a friend's non-profit. It was so fun! And we met lots of fascinating people. These included: a very kind muckety muck at Starbucks; podcaster-ro...

Busy week here on the Internet, with a sterling write-up of the show on Vulture and oodles of new listeners. Meanwhile, in real life, the same old silent trees and trails. I mean, wow: it took walking alone in the woods for me to feel a part of things online. Anyway, since it's still not apparent to me that anyone reads these show descriptions (do you?) I'll just provide this short summary of this...

We had tremendous snow. Historic snow! A back-to-back-to-back #snowmageddon scenario. School was cancelled, life was disrupted, the power went out and everything was white. Finally, I put on my big honking duck boots and noisy nylon pants and went for a proper walk. (By the way, does any one read these summaries? Just curious.) It was all so novel and disorienting: the bristly sizzle the snow made...

It was bound to happen. In 1864, Captain William Renton arrived on Bainbridge Island and built what would soon be lauded as the largest sawmill in the world. A town blossomed around it, with churches, a school and a 75-room hotel, and a separate village of Japanese workers, with a bath house and ice cream parlor. Then, in 1888 the mill burned down. In 1907, it burned down again. Then vertically-in...

It was one of those Saturday mornings when the wide, blue sky begged to be walked under. So out I went. And I wasn't alone. This episode features several salutary exchanges with other walkers—or, as I like to call them, fellow citizens of "The Trek-nited Feets of Walkmerica" (trademark pending.) Keep an ear out for their doppler-tinged Hi's and Howyadoin's as they shuffle by, all of us enjoying ou...

The quote is taken from Thoreau. The walk was taken out of stress. I took this walk after getting an email from my editor which (long story) made my work life (which is a big chunk of my total life) feel instantaneously disorienting and urgent. I panicked and started doing lots of stuff to adjust. Then, I went for a walk--to let my brain catch up with my emotions. I walked pretty fast, especially...