The Almost-Luther Day

We have dubbed today the Almost-Luther Day, because at 39km we fell a tri­fle short of the 42km aver­age he is sup­posed to have walked on his south­ward jour­ney. (Much of the day was spent along the Rennsteig, a very old road from Ilme­nau south­wards. Many times we walked through the rut–sometimes more than 8ft deep–carved by hun­dreds of years of horses, mules, oxes and carts. All in all a very his­tor­i­cal day.)

All the same it took us 13.5 hours and we’re in our Zim­merver­mi­etung in a state nearly beside our­selves with exhaus­tion. We also got a taste of Luther’s win­ter cold, despite it being August. And we also real­ized that walk­ing in Novem­ber and Decem­ber, Luther must have spent quite a lot of time walk­ing in the dark. More on this and our other day’s adven­tures tomor­row when we are more coherent.

Zach Wilson says:
August 25, 2010 at 5:29 am
What’s a Zimmervermietung?
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The Spokesrider says:
August 25, 2010 at 5:29 am
Con­grat­u­la­tions on your big day! I’m inter­ested in hear­ing more of your thoughts about Luther walk­ing at night, and what kind of LED flash­light he would rec­om­mend for the trek. But get rest and get warm, first.
This reminds me of some­thing that has often bugged me about Jesus movies, or many other movies for that exam­ple. They show peo­ple walk­ing leisurely along a road, talk­ing together. But I’ll bet they really moved when they were walk­ing, and that it would have taken extra effort to talk and walk at the same time. Not that they wouldn’t have done it, of course. (I under­stand that it would be harder to make a movie that showed peo­ple talk­ing while walk­ing fast. But it bugs me, anyway.)
Speak­ing of walk­ing speeds in the cold, I met my wife when we were at Con­cor­dia Col­lege, St. Paul. She lived in an apartment/dorm slightly off cam­pus. It’s a cold walk from Lex­ing­ton Avenue to the class­room build­ings, espe­cially in win­ter in Min­nesota, where I-94 chan­nels the wind. All the girls in her build­ing had rep­u­ta­tions as fast walk­ers. I could hardly keep up with her in those days. We’ve both slowed down since then. It has been a few decades.
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