Walk Where You Are
Walks Around Berea, Kentucky. Part 2
Thursday
The weather looked scorching from first light. Immediately after dropping Cordelia at camp, I walked to the John B. Stephenson Memorial Trail, at the Berea Municipal Utilities site. The path meandered next to Silver Creek and on the other side, an assortment of fields, an organic farm, and a supply depot for said utilities. Alternately shady and sun-soaked, toward the end of the mile-long trail, a single-family residential area enveloped it.
In the sunny spots, I covered my head with my trusty, cooling, moisture wicking hoody. In a long, sunny straight, I met an elderly man with two black dogs, one also elderly and one a puppy. Seeing me, the man hailed:
“You must be burning up in that sweatshirt.”
“No, sir, it’s a sunshirt. It has SPF protection and keeps me cool.”
He appeared dubious of my outlandish claim; I guess wicking technology, which would have immeasurably aided the lives of Civil War soldiers, hasn’t permeated the entire Union 160 years hence.
He and his dogs and I traded spots along the trail back to the trailhead, as I stopped to rest my feet or his dogs ducked down a short path into Silver Creek.
I emerged at the trailhead by the Municipal Utilities and suffered as I plodded uphill in the sun. On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at Whimsy’s Books, the purveyor of new books in Berea. Chilled by AC – a technology which has blessedly permeated the former Union and Confederacy – I perused the shelves, dawdling to avoid a return to the sunshine. Finally I did and made the short stroll back to the hotel.
I stopped only long enough to pick up my car keys. Then I drove to the Kentucky Artisan Center. Located close to I-75, it serves as a higher-end rest stop and gallery of Appalachian arts, crafts and goods. It included the most extensive selection of books about Kentucky and by Kentuckians I’d ever seen. Sections included History, Biography, Literature, Poetry, and Politics. It also included ones on the Paranormal, Horror and Murder. Not generally my tumbler of bourbon, but hey, I appreciated the comprehensiveness of the variety of stories the great Commonwealth has to share with the wider world.
The Center sold artwork, sculpture, rubs, sauces, pens, jewelry, music, tools, home goods, food mixes and much else. Nothing tempted me, and I have to say, the visit disappointed me. Not by the quality of goods or art. In fact, I saw few tchotchke-type items. But the experience felt incomplete, superficial and pretended. I spied a couple of 6-packs of Ale-8-One soda, made in Winchester, Kentucky. But the drinks fridge and the cafe only sold Big Soda and Big Energy Drinks. It seemed an incongruity in a place dedicated to the uniqueness of Kentucky. Even if they’d expanded the offerings to include other goods and edibles made in Appalachia, say Waynesville Jerk Sodas out of Waynesville, North Carolina, it would have seemed truer to the purported aim of the place. Similarly with the music. The Center sold CDs of a ton of Kentucky artists. But throughout and overhead, they played the soulless pop prevalent in retail worldwide. What a missed opportunity.
I took a couple loops around, but didn’t linger. Details matter in arts, crafts and all work. I felt disappointed that this Center didn’t embody the attention to particulars that so many of its treasures on offer did.
Friday
Cordelia’s camp wrapped up in the early afternoon. I took my remaining few hours in Berea to tread the Old Town streets I had walked earlier. On Chestnut Street, I enjoyed another sausage, egg and cheese bagel at Native Bagel Company. I stopped back in Mary Lou’s Book Shop, and happily met the owner, Mary Lou. In her previous career, she had worked as a teacher. In her ten months since founding and running her Book Shop, she had learned she had a lot to learn about business. And that “they” made it hard to start and run a business. She didn’t need to explain further – I knew what and whom she meant by “they.” We enjoyed a nice chat for a few minutes, then more serious customers came through the door and I excused myself.
On Friday, all my walks around Berea came back to me. As did the prolific writer and walker Craig Mod, whom I have read for several years. For anyone unfamiliar with Mod, he lives in Japan, and over 20 years has developed a devoted following through his walks, especially in Japan and with technologist Kevin Kelly, and through his extensive writings. Those works include craftsman-quality books, exquisite photography, his newsletters and community, and pieces in The New York Times, WIRED, The Atlantic, Japan Times, among others. Several times per year, Mod undertakes extensive walks – 300 miles in the Kii Peninsula, multiple walks in the Tōkaidō, and so on.
I have found his walks both inspiring…and daunting. I too wish to take long walks and I maintain a lengthy list of walks I want to undertake. And from my list of ambitious walks, how many have I completed?
That number, gentle reader, is one.
In 2023, I did take 30 walks in nature. To say I loved it would massively undersell what it did in my life and to my spirit.
Still, the vast majority of the long list of walks stares back at me, unfulfilled.
As I concluded my walks around Berea, I came to a belated but ultimately obvious realization. I am not Craig Mod. I exist in a different stage and mode of life than he does. I have a wife and kids. He does not currently appear to have a partner (he discussed a breakup in August 2025). And he has no children (although he did write about “someone in my life who is like a step-daughter”). So he does not have the continual kids’s logistics I have: the daily schlepping and coordination with my wife. He can focus a high percentage of his days on his work: his walking and his writing. I can dedicate a small percentage to my walking and writing. Family logistics, the third-generation business I have with my uncle and my brother, my own work preserving the legacy of family businesses, and, currently, matters around my Mom’s estate, take up a lot of time. If I can dedicate 10 hours a week to my walking and SA, I feel thrilled.
Let me say it very clearly: I love my life. I love having a family, spending lots of time with my children and supporting them in their loves, helping to coach their archery team, and everything else that goes along with having a family and two small businesses.
Judging myself by the extent, output and even quality of Mod’s work simply isn’t a legitimate comparison or aim in this season of life. And that’s okay. In a future stage of life, I will undertake some of those more daunting walks.
For now, I walk where I am.
That was an enormously liberating realization. I live in Louisville. So walk Louisville. I spent a week in Berea. So I walked around Berea.
Walk where you are.
That’s what I can do. That’s what I will do. I hope you will enjoy a beautiful walk today – wherever you are.
