Looking back on the routes Julie, Ben, and I have been taking, you might say that they were determined thousands of years ago by their physical geography. During the beginning of our trip, Julie and I traveled through the Mohawk Valley of New York, which separates the Adirondack and Catskill mountain ranges. The valley was created by an enormous amount of rushing water that melted from retreating glaciers after the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. At the bottom of the valley now lies the Mohawk River. The Mohawk, named after the Native American tribe, has always been an important transportation route because it very nearly connected east coast to the interior of the country by way of the Great Lakes. That ‘very nearly’ part vexed a lot of our founding fathers, including George Washington, who was one of many who spoke of the need to build a canal to extend the Mohawk to Lake Erie. Nevertheless, Thomas Jefferson passed on federally funding the project in 1800.

What became known as the Erie Canal was eventually built in 1825, after 8 years of work by Irish laborers. New York Governor Dewitt Clinton used 7 million dollars of state funding to pay for it. Goods could now be shipped from New York via the Hudson to Albany, where they would make a 90-degree left turn into the mouth of the Mohawk and head west. The canal is what made NYC so wealthy and became the reason New York is called the Empire State, the original gateway to the rest of the country. There was one problem though– Cohoes Falls on the Mohawk slowed the fully water-borne passage. The problem had been surmounted with a series of locks along the canal. However, some passengers did not want to wait while their cargo made its way through the locks. Therefore, in the early years of the canal, a stage coach was set up between Albany and Schenectady for travelers who were content with letting their luggage catch up with them later.

That stage line eventually gave way to the Albany-Schenectady railroad in 1831, the first railroad in New York. The line ran through the Pine Bush area, a unique habitat with a large density of pine trees. In fact, the word ‘Schenectady’ is derived from the Mohawk phrase schau-naugh-ta-da, which means ‘across the pine plains’ (and is the setting for the Ryan Gosling movie Place beyond the Pines). The soil in this 19-mile stretch is sandy, sediment left from the glaciers that carved out the Mohawk Valley. Before the glacier water receded, there was a lake here, called Lake Albany by geologists. That flatness of the old lake bed made it ideal for the rail line. Eventually, the rail line also went away, making way for the age of the automobile. A road called Central Avenue took its place. I tell you all this because I live about a mile from Central Avenue, midway between Albany and Schenectady in what is now known as the Town of Colonie. Central Avenue might now seem like a placeless and nondescript commercial corridor, but if you look into its history, it played a key role in the development of the United States.

As far as Ben’s route, I’ll have much to say about that in my next post. Spoiler alert: I spent part of my childhood in Pittsburgh.

Julie still manages to outpace us as she ventures into Michigan. This week, she is about 14 miles short of the Smallwander town of Tecumseh. Tecumseh was named after a Shawnee war chief who resisted settlers coming into the Northwest Territory. During the War of 1812, Tecumseh sides with the British but is killed in battle. His death marks the beginning of Native American removal from the territory. To continue with my habit of free association, the Union Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman, was named after the chief by his Ohioan father. So, Tecumseh is venerated by later generations born from the settlers who swept through the land and disposessed its first inhabitants. John ventured just outside of Mansfield, OH, which is known as the ‘Fun Center of Ohio’ for reasons yet to be explored. Ben’s final destination was New Bethlehem, PA, home to a Peanut Butter Festival because of its Smucker’s factory. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, Smucker’s does not sponsor the festival. I see an opportunity here.

Ben made it to about 10 miles away from Punxsutawney, in the hinterlands of Pennsylvania. If he had been doing his steps more diligently, he could have made it there for the Groundhog Day festival. This celebration, although it has pagan roots, is not my type of thing. Julie, on the other hand, has experienced it for real after taking a road trip there in the middle of the night in the late 90s with a cohort of friends. I think it is time to move past the use of living groundhogs unless someone can convince me they enjoy the spectacle. Nevertheless, the Groundhog Day film is beyond reproach. Wikipedia says the film has philosophic undertones. If I didn’t try to get into philosophy with the naming of Calvin and Hobbes, I’m not gong to try to be smart today. However, I reserve the right to return to both topics. Meanwhile, John and Julie landed near the Smallwander towns of Medina and Put-in-Bay, OH.

Julie and I passed into Ohio this week. Amazingly, our respective walking totals landed us both in the Smallwander town of Chagrin Falls. The town is the home of Bill Watterson, creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, my all-time favorite. If Julie and I were actually passing though, and if everything was open, we would probably check out the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre, which is one of the country’s oldest community theatres. Meanwhile, Ben is still ambling through Pennsylvania, landing in State College, which is the home of the flagship campus for Penn State University.