PORTLAND, Maine — It was about 10 years ago when Neil King first had the idea of heading out the door of his home near the U.S. Capitol and walking 330 miles to Central Park in Manhattan. It’s a corridor not known as a walker’s paradise, but it’s packed with history and with landscapes that range from the bucolic farmlands of southeastern Pennsylvania to the massive landfills of New Jersey.
“The more I started to look at it—the routes I could choose, which way I could go, the stories I would find along the way—I realized so much of our nation’s history is to be found between Washington and New York,” King says. “I really wanted to go out and look at it up close and see what came my way in terms of serendipitous encounters.”
The first of those encounters came a day or two into the trip. A guy named Ted was out at the end of his driveway bringing in a trash can when King came along, and the two started talking.
“You’re going on this walk, brother, and it’s a holy walk, a walk of worship,” Ted soon declared as he heard details of the trip. The more they talked, the more Ted became convinced that King was going to heal both himself and others as he made his way to New York City.
That sounded like a lot of weight to King.
“You can carry it,” Ted replied. “And it will only get lighter as you go.”
King, who is now retired after a career in journalism, recounts the journey in “American Ramble,” a blend of memoir, history and travelogue. Although he had traveled extensively, including a trip around the world when he was in his 20s, this relatively simple pilgrimage was, he says, one of the best things he’s ever done in his life. Not surprisingly, his book has touched a chord with readers, and in many cases elicited an I-wish-I-could-do-that sensation.
King said he understands the feeling.
“It just paid off in such an amazing way,” he said of the walk. “I urge people to do their own ramble.”