Going the extra mile

"Don't worry, the dogs are friendly."
"Oh, I'm not worried about the dogs, I just don't want to walk down those stairs"
"Well, if you think that's a lot, you've got 20 times that number coming up."
"I know, that's why I don't want to walk those extra 15."

I don't normally confess to people that I'm not going to take a detour to look at some beautiful piece of scenery.   Usually,  the person giving the recommendation won't be there to watch me walk past it so I just say "Oh, that sounds nice. Thanks for the recommendation.". We almost never go to look at anything that requires walking off the trail.  Even something that's 1/10th of a mile off will illicit some debate between us about whether or not it's worth it.   Usually we can hold out and get a view for free.

I didn't expect that when we started this hike.  I expected to take the detours and look at things.  Nope.  I look at lots of things all day long and when your entire day (and the next day, and the next and the next) consists of walking-I'm not inclined to go out of my way.

For awhile, in Maine, we hiked with a man who had first section hiked the AT and was now doing a thru-hike.  He said that his desire to go "off trail" and look at things as well as his enjoyment of said things was much higher when we was section hiking.  He said he remembers looking at some views and thinking "wow-that's incredible" but now, as a thru-hiker, he doesn't feel as much awe from them.  I feel somewhat the same way. The views are gorgeous and we do stop to look at them.  But we see them everyday, multiple times a day.  They're not little breaks from our everyday lives.  They are our everyday life. I don't need to walk 0.1 off the trail to see something spectacular.  I have 2,184 miles of it.     Life on the trail is beautiful.