I was one of those guys, you see them all the time. I’m walking and it’s a humid day. I’m walking, and it’s humid, and it’s noon. It’s humid, it’s noon, and I’m on a not-wide-enough-it-seems piece of concrete that serves as a sidewalk on Rockville Pike.
Walking to destinations that you normally take a car to is a humbling experience. In my case, it was the Target near the Twinbrook metro station.
Near, being a relative term.  About 3,000 feet from the station isn’t so bad. But then I decided to to to REI. But before that, Armand’s. Then I had to go to Whole Foods. So it was a pretty long circuit.
During the trip there were numerous near run ins with vehicles. I guess cutting across parking lots isn’t really the safest option as a pedestrian. All in all, I spent four hours walking around, stopping nearly everywhere and reminding myself that walking around isn’t just for commuting or fitness.
Something which is easy to forget when you’re lugging around a laptop on your back all day.
3,000 feet is, of course, more than half a mile, but I didn’t even know there was a Target near Twinbrook. I go to the one near Wheaton, those few times I actually go to Target.
I hate those pedestrian-unfriendly expanses of suburb. Once upon a time people walked dirt roads for miles between towns to get where they were going (assuming bandits weren’t a problem and horsees were unavailable) and now it seems our modern infrastructure with its narrow sidewalks and speeding cars is even worse for walkers than the dirt roads of old.