Lazarow World-Hike-About: Two million and growing...our 8th anniversary of Hike-About...feet not dollars.

Peak of Casamanya, Andorra.

'Happy' 8th Anniversary as the tough Mountains of Eastern Europe make us feel closer to 80, muscular-wise.

At the end of May, Hike-About reached its 8th anniversary. While we don’t keep accurate statistics and much information of our travels, our blog and a few other tools do provide useful indications. Set out below are a few statistics and tidbits.

Although it could be somewhat under or over, we calculate we have acquired vertical elevation gain of some two million (2,000,000) feet. (To avoid ambiguity, that is, two million each.) When Jenni has to carry me which happens from time-to-time, we still credit the feet to me—poetic (pathetic) licence.

Distance walked is probably well over seven thousand miles.

Whining, moaning and groaning is not quantifiable—infinite.

We have stayed in many motels, condos, flats, huts, rooms, tents, hotels, our car on Mauna Loa in Hawaii on two occasions at 11,000 feet, a container in El Chalten, B&B’s, Air BnB’s, lofts, hostels, slept under the stars and probably other places we fail to remember. We’ve booked accommodation directly, used Booking.com, Hotel.com, Priceline, VRBO, Home-away, Expedia, plus many others. We’ve written a couple of hundred reviews of places of accommodation. People have written reviews about us, too. We have hired many rental cars, stayed in hundreds of small towns, villages, cities and been to a few countries, too. We could not even offer a guess of the many nights this amounts to; the number of beds slept in almost seems immoral. In all that time, only one of us mistakenly aimed at the bathtub thinking it was the toilet in the early, dark hours of morning on an occasion.

We try not to look and sound stupid when people talk to us in foreign languages. We seem to have a good command of our own sign language which works on occasion but does let us down frequently. When we encounter difficulties, there always seems to be a kind sole willing and able to assist us. We never take people for granted and are extremely touched by the actions of many. Some have questioned the dangers of the wilds. To the contrary, some of our tense moments have been in laundries of establishments offering such services. Arguments of "who arrived first, you're not in the queue or you had no right to remove my washing...even though I left it in the machine while I was sleeping, eating or otherwise engaged".

We have met hundreds of people, most of them nice, from many countries speaking tens of languages and of all ages, cultures, religions and backgrounds. We have enjoyed coincidences that one could not make up using the imagination. Just today we had another such occurrence that is strangely, so exciting. The influence of those we've met have helped to broaden the minds while the heavy exercise helps avoid broadening of the hips. It's about opening the channels. We correspond with a number of people we’ve met on the road and are fortunate to know Joanne and Ron, Jonna and Tim, Barry J, Bill A, Elsa and Derryl, Doug M, reconnected with Maude and Theo, and others. We have a post/mail lady in Denise Sneag and are grateful to her. A number of people write to us, providing comments, insights and humor which is most entertaining and motivating. We are most grateful for their effort and input.

We have hiked some 950 times officially at time of writing, over 8 years, and a number of local hikes which are not included in the statistics. We’ve hiked across international borders but never from Mexico to the United States—we’re not that bold.

Jenni continues to cook superbly using hundreds of different microwaves, a much lesser number of ovens and stovetops. She produces dishes that would surprise the manufacturers of microwave ovens—bakes, cooks, boils, broils, fries and even cleans-up after itself and on occasion will sing. We’ve shopped at supermarkets in many parts of the world and never failed to identify Coca Cola. We eat much cereal (granola) and try out the hundreds of varieties available of our favorites, including yoghurts. It becomes a game as we search and hope a particular country has good stuff. Thus far, Eastern Europe is the winner. We search the refrigerators for vegetarian meals, often unsuccessfully, never giving up. We try to learn the local words for eggs, salad dressing and other essentials but have found we understand the logic of supermarket layouts—they can’t hide much from us. We weigh fruit and vegetables and much of the time we recognize the pictures on the scales but of course, not the words. Because of our lack of languages, we have learned to anticipate actions in supermarkets, gas stations and other shops we frequent. Sometimes we carry on a conversation where neither we nor the local understand a word but often come away feeling we had a nice interchange.
We've never intimated we are intelligent.

We have learned much about the world and its peoples but mostly, about ourselves. Most importantly, we have learned a vital attribute of humanity is kindness. When we experience it, we realize we are in the company of a truly holy person.

We have been lost in the wilds twice, seriously, although we do have temporary lapses from time-to-time. The major occurrence in Durango, Colorado, causes us to express our appreciation often in the hope that David will in some way be rewarded for his kindness in delivering us back to the trailhead. Yesterday, we had a glorious opportunity in remembering David.

There is little doubt we are financially worse off than had we remained engaged in the business field. Nevertheless, our lives are enriched to a degree we could never ever have envisaged. Our priorities differ vastly from earlier years. Should we have learned a couple of things over this period, it would relate to the concepts of attitude, materialism and our relevance in the world. Breaking out of the channel, seeking and pursuing freedom and questioning conventions (except values) that enslave us have been major benefits as we 'seek further mid-life crises'. Do we qualify as mid-lifers or are we past it?

The book we published last year might provide a reader with our particular slant of the world as it encourages a person to ‘Seize the day’. “A Life Experience as No Other…”

What we should continue to strive for. After all, 'she ain't heavy' (in a manner of speaking).

Cheers,

Jenni and Jeffrey

Slovakian woman (landlady's mother) from Strba in customary, earlier generational dress. The other person, recently showered, in poor state of dress. In the background are the High Tatras mountains.