All photos by me… feel free to use if you like. The one above is purposely dark and blurry, kinda like me a few years ago! But there’s always light…

The idea was born on April 26, 2017. The story started long before that, and will hopefully last for years to come… this is how it has come about…

April 26, 2017…

Was walking along alone one night near my very quiet neighborhood in San Antonio, when suddenly my recently purchased Fitbit began to vibrate and flash. I had no idea what it was all about but it prompted me to look at the app, and here I was, the proud recipient of the “Italy Award” from Fitbit, celebrating that I had walked the length of Italy, 736 miles, since I started tracking my walks. The only reason I know the date is electronics… looked it up!

I have always been a walker, I simply love to walk. I have walked throughout my life, save a few years when I ran, a handful I just got sloppy and a couple where I really could not walk at all due to a bone on bone condition in my right knee. Most of my mornings have started with a walk - walking dogs as a young dad in Mexico City, a not so young dad in San Antonio, walks through towns and cities all over. As kids, my mom would take us places walking, when most people would have driven a car! I will be talking about walking!

So with my virtual badge all pinned, I started thinking… well, that was fairly easy, Italy, couple of months, no problem… and then the original idea just popped into mind. The bone on bone condition mentioned above has since been corrected by a total knee replacement (TKR) in December of 2009. It has allowed me to live the lifestyle I do… I walk, I hike, I climbed up Pike’s Peak a week ago! I am free of pain (in the knee anyway!)… So by the time I got home that night, I had a plan. I was going to walk from Union Station in Los Angeles, to Union Station in New York, and I was going to offer the company that actually designed and manufactured my knee the ultimate patient/product/company testimonial, and that is, a then 57 year old dude with an almost 10 year old knee, walking across the United States. Sounded awesome to me…

However, more important than the idea was a commitment I made to myself that night. I have forever been full of really good ideas, and projects, and plans… I don’t know if this is one of them (!), but I also have forever been one to not follow up, or procrastinate until it was too late, or talk about things that never actually happened. I promised myself that I would take this walk, and I’m doing it, albeit with some modifications. Much more on that later.

Back to the idea, the proposal. Over the following months I made several different attempts to contact the company that designed and manufactured the hardware in my knee, to propose my plan. All attempts, including a hand delivered letter to one of their US offices fell on deaf ears and were probably tossed. A dear friend suggested I contact my surgeon and see if he could help, which he did, and within a few days, we were in contact, and everyone was quite excited about the project! We went back and forth for several months, and then dead silence. Calls and emails weren’t being answered - very uncool… Have no idea what the cause might have been - suspect a risk averse lawyer or a fragile ego, don’t know, but would have really appreciated a 2 minute call to let me know they were no longer interested.

By now, timing was such that it pushed the walk back a year… I had several major changes going on an couldn’t really spend that much time on it, and my weather window was gone, so I pushed to this year. The other major change was the addition of my youngest daughter Isabela to said walk! She was between universities, and it occurred to us we could do together, so that was the next plan. Then things started getting weird.

Last August, I was in Mexico City for the marathon, which I finished, a story unto itself, and had breakfast with a friend who’s been my friend for 50 years, literally. We kept talking and I mentioned “the walk”. He lit up, having been involved in sponsorships and charities for many years. Couple of phone call later, we had several people very interested and excited, and I went for it. Admittedly, I was quite naive about how this all worked, but followed the plan throughout the Fall and into early this year. Then I thought we had settled on a really cool charity, which it is, and we had the beginnings of a plan that could have raised several hundred thousand dollars, if not more… but then money reared its ugly head and all the shitty things it does to people came to the table and it was all downhill from there. At this point, the life had been sucked out of our walk; higher than normal expectations had pretty much been shattered, and it was back to square one. Do I postpone another year? What about Isabela? Work?

I considered pushing to 2020 - idea was short lived. My time to do this is now. Because of time and weather, I won’t be able to leave from California, but I’d much rather modify than delay again. I may not be able to or be here to do later… I am perhaps in the best physical condition I’ve ever been, mind mostly clear, material stuff in boxes and containers… time is now. I am determined to do this, Isabela is going back to college, and I am leaving Austin, TX, on Sunday August 11th, with a very clear vision of walking into Central Park, in New York City, with my family and friends, 1700+ miles later, some wonderful day in late October.

Since its inception, I have asked myself countless times why I’m doing this, and many of the reasons have changed over time… money, charity, sponsors, followers for Isabela’s social media career! But there have been several constants…. one has always been my desire to write you a story, a story of stories, of people, of connections, of some pretty cool stuff I’ve learned, of what’s worked, what hasn’t. Another is my promise to myself. A third is I want to, and I can! I can’t think of any better way to spend three months than walking, eating, talking, sleeping and writing.

No, I am not an author, I am not a trained writer, though I love to write… kinda like walking. I’ll do my best to stay on track, which is kind of an issue with me, in general! Mistakes will be made… I don’t have an editor or a publisher, though I probably need both. I don’t know most of the so called literary rules, and don’t have the time (or the desire) to learn them! I write like I think, and what I write I will post. I won’t have the time to perfect it or slant it or otherwise modify after a couple of reads. It is what it is.

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INTRO

This is the introduction to a story, a story that began when I was a child, a story that has yet to be written. It is a story of stories, some past and others yet to unfold.

I have written this introduction dozens and dozens of times in my head over the last few months, Talked about it once or twice, but this is my first and only attempt at putting into words. Every introduction my head conjured up however was different than the other, and a few months ago I realized that I really have no idea what this story will become! I know a few things I’d like to share with you, and I shall, but I don’t know when or in what context. I’ve tried putting a story plan together several times and failed. I don’t particularly want a plan – I want it to unfold as it will if allowed.

This of course was a problem when it came to sponsorships and charities! Everyone wanted to know what the end result would be, how many followers I would have, what impact every dollar spent would have, and so on… truth is, I don’t know, I have no idea. By now you may surmise this is not about the end result.. this is about getting there, the journey, and all that led up to it!

As mentioned before, and probably many times going forward, I love to walk. This time around however, walking has taken on a different meaning and importance. It is my meditation, it is my peace, it is my presence. Back in early 2017, I started walking at night, every night. It wasn’t just by chance… at the time I also decided that the single best thing I could do for my health (both physical and mental) was to stop drinking alcohol. I may get into detail later, but suffice to say, I substituted the evening glasses of wine for a walk. I am pleased to say, and can do so fairly safely, that I broke a habit, and fortunately wasn’t dealing with an addiction. Within a few weeks, the walks became my new habit and I looked forward to them all day long. At the time, I was travelling quite a bit for work, but always packed my walking gear and had some fantastic walks most everywhere I went. I also started feeling incredibly well, better than I’d felt in years. My walks also started getting longer, typically walking 50 or so miles a week. And then I had my brilliant idea…

But this isn’t only about walking of course… it has more to do about what I think about when I walk!

So I suppose an introduction is next… I don’t particularly like talking about myself, but will just get over it for a while… Name is Peter Daniel but people call me a lot of different things…I am a 58 year old relatively normal man, though I challenge “normal” often every day – we can get into that later. I have three very cool children, and two very cool parents, one deceased but with me very day. And I have friends and family who I love and adore, and now more than ever, appreciate enormously. I am not a rock star, I am not a celebrity, I am just a guy, a dude, one of 7+billion on this very thin little crust of solid and sea quaking over a tiny ball of molten rock spinning around a relatively small star in a relatively small galaxy of an enormous Universe… yep, little me. I’ve already had a pretty awesome life. It’s had its ups and downs (most of which escape memory) but it has been overall really nice. And I want to share parts of it, and some of the lessons learned, and some of the things that worked for me. At no point will I tell you what to do. My hope is that something, some little thing you read, invokes a thought, makes your life a little better or sparks a change that will lead to better… I also know that if I can do it, anyone can. There is nothing special or unique about me - we are all equally special and unique, just sayin’.

As I approach 60, I dare say I’ve walked around the block a few times, done a lot of different things. Was born in Mexico City - fantastic free childhood down there. Shipped off to high school and university in California, back to Mexico, then San Antonio and currently Austin. I have raised a family - best thing I’ve ever been is a dad. And I’ve worked in many places, from training polo horses to running a business, family business and making money for big corporations. All this is part of the story. in some form or another. And it hasn’t always been easy. My memory is mostly full of good, partially because I tend to forget the bad, but I may recall some of the bad only in reference to the good it eventually brought, or the lessons it taught…

I can safely say that today I’m living some of the best years of my life. On paper, or measured in “normalcy” I really shouldn’t be… this is when people, the normals, say you should slow down, and then wait for your kids to come visit, and the grand kids to come around to the house, and then you retire and play golf and follow the normal progression of “life”… I am not going there, now. I know that is a gross generalization and simplification, but I still have way way too much to do before I settle, if ever… I don’t want to settle. And these best years didn’t just fall into my lap - I’ve had to work at it! In the last three or four years I have been through half a dozen of the top 20 stressful life events, yet here I am, relatively unscathed. I emerged happy, I emerged clear and clean,

Unfortunately, or better, fortunately, these life events inevitably cause change, change that could be either positive or negative, or made positive… I have (had?) always been averse to change. Change can be uncomfortable, is tiring, stressful, all those things we like to avoid. This story has a lot to do with change. And a question I ask is… why do we wait for a life event to initiate those changes? Why does it take a cancer, a death, a divorce, an infidelity or a beating to initiate a change? Maybe this story will prompt someone to just act, without the traumatic event, or just because they want to feel better… this is one of my hopes.

I dare say that if I had not made the changes I did, there’s a slight chance I might not be here today. I’ll rewind 5 years. I was stuck, I was in a rut that unfortunately happens to a lot of us… I was not well…. I ate and drank too much, wasn’t exercising, was working too much, and I had basically let myself slide. Blood pressure was high, right in line with stress levels. I was mostly depressed. I was just going along with “life”… my children buoyed my spirits, along with a handful of close friends. I was just fulfilling my obligations, and that was about it. Since then, I have lost a third of my body weight - from an all time high of 240 pounds to what I weighed as a senior in high school. BP averages 100/70, blood chemistry back to normal. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could finish a marathon (4 awesome ones this past year - I walk them!) or climb a fourteener. I do not take any medicine. But more importantly, I am happy… most of the time.

It has been a process, and this may sound way to simple, bordering on stupid, but I decided to be happy. It happened at a music festival… I’ll expand on this later, but one fine day, a Sunday, I got quite pissed at myself… my attitude really sucked, perhaps with a little bit of reason - I was going through some tough stuff - but regardless, I was really tired of feeling the way I did… so I sat under a tree, the tree from which I’m leaving in a couple of weeks, and just started untangling my brain. A couple of hours later, the decision was made, and from that point forward, things began to change… with happy as the objective, I defend myself from negativity, I have left a very toxic work environment, I have mended relationships that needed some work. I take care of myself, I take better care of my people, I am back to the happy self I was as a kid. Of course, there are some dark moments, but I’ve learned to deal with them, and they’re part of the whole picture, and they enhance the happy when it comes back!

So, this is it… unfolding every day. I’m really looking forward to walking across the park in a couple of weeks, and do hope you’ll come along. Let’s do this… Peace