The Floyd to Roanoke Walking Trip: Notes from Kim O’Donnell, the “caboosa woosa”

As a trustee at Springhouse, I do my best to stay meaningfully connected to the school. For nearly a decade, I have done this in a variety of ways: facilitating classes, volunteering in the print shop, engaging in a peer mentoring relationship with our Executive Director, participating in Springhouse programs (True North and Sacred Dance) and informally serving as a support system for students and staff in their day to day lives. One of the most significant ways I have deepened my connection with our entire school community has been by joining them on school trips.  

Three times a year at Springhouse, students, staff and trustees take a trip together.  Over the years, we have had a variety of extraordinary experiences:  traveling to the Chesapeake Bay to sail a boat built by our students; canoeing, kayaking and camping on the James River; driving to Alabama to visit the Equal Justice Initiative and the Legacy Museum; and earlier this year heading south to North Carolina to help our neighbors with clean-up efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Helene.  Each trip has been unique and memorable.

Recently, we completed our last trip of the school year and we did something we rarely do:  we repeated a trip.  Seven years ago, we walked fifty miles from Floyd to Roanoke and this year we decided to do it again. 

This particular trip is a doozy, as you can well imagine.  Starting in downtown Floyd, we wound our way through backroads to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  For the rest of nearly four whole days, we walked and camped as we made our way down the mountain to Roanoke. On both trips, we were accompanied by Jonathon Stalls, a self described multidisciplinary walking artist and the author of Walk.  In 2010, Jonathon spent 242 days walking across the United States.

Each morning in our opening circle, Jonathon prepared us for the day by sharing a specific intention and asking us to carry it with us as we walked.  He pointed out magnificent trees and often beckoned us to follow him through the weeds or across the road so we could place our hands on their rough bark. When we took breaks, he read stories from his book.  He invited us to collect found objects for our closing circle. He collected sticks and feathers and bone and attached them to his walking stick.  At every turn, he invited us to see the magic of the world around us and to be fully present to who and what we were walking with.

My role on each of these walking trips has been to be what I have come to affectionately call the “caboosa woosa”.  Each day I walked at the back of our group wearing a neon yellow and orange vest.  I kept company with the students and staff who were walking the slowest and  sometimes I acted like an old sheepdog, gently nudging folks along so we would not get too far behind the others. Mostly, I welcomed whatever speed was set and allowed myself to enjoy being unhurried. 

This is the intimate invitation walking offers: time to be an observer of what can only be seen when we are traveling on foot.  A baby rabbit burrowed deep in the grass. An owl sitting high up in a pine tree. Poison ivy.  On Sundays, when I walk the six miles between my home and my Quaker Meeting, I see things up close that I never see when I am driving.  

To be clear, though, walking fifty miles in four days with twenty five other people was not relaxing.  It was relentless and exhausting and deeply difficult. Blisters, boredom, sleeplessness and an absence of cell phones and computer screens competed for some with the joys and delights of adventure and discovery.  

We suffered. We celebrated. We played word games to pass the time (“Name five items of clothing that have yet to be invented”.)  We made up ridiculous chants and songs.  We had spontaneous dance parties in the middle of the road, on the side of the road, at overlooks and at picnic areas. We talked about our families, our old schools, our griefs and longings. All of this bonded us as we walked

On our first walking trip seven years ago, I had the privilege of walking beside Julia, who was at that time one of the youngest students in our community. On the longest walking day of that trip, Julia was struggling and pushing hard against her limits. It was beginning to get dark and we had been walking all day. Everyone else had reached our final camping destination in the field of a day care center. Julia was determined to get there. As the “caboosa woosa”, I was by her side, wondering if I should insist that she be picked up by our shuttle van.  She kept walking. When we reached the day care center, she walked through the door, collapsed on the floor and started crying.  It was a remarkable personal achievement.  

Julia graduated from Springhouse several years ago, but came to the school before this year’s walk to share her story and to offer encouragement to the students preparing for the journey.  She knew what they were heading toward.

On the third day of our walk this year, in the late afternoon, I hit a wall. We had already been walking for more than seven hours and I knew we had at least four more to go.  I wanted to sit down. I wanted to take a long, extended break.  And,  if I had been walking alone, I might have done this.  But, we needed to get to our last camping spot before dark and I didn’t want to be the reason we didn’t get there. So I kept walking.

At our next stop, I decided to ask for help.  “I’m not sure I can do this, people”, I said. “I’m really going to need your help”.  At the next water break, I was greeted by students and staff standing in two lines facing each other cheering me on as I danced beneath their arms and through their human tunnel.  It was invigorating and gave me the energy I needed to keep going.

I was slightly delirious and unhinged for the next two hours of walking. With less than an hour to go, I heard a student’s voice come through the walkie talkie in my pocket.  “We’re almost there, Kim.  You got this”.  A few minutes later, a different voice, one I recognized through my exhaustion.  Julia.   “You can do it, Kim. Don’t give up”, she said.  And, as I stumbled out of the woods and onto the field where we were camping, I found Julia standing at the end of the trail.

So many tender threads are woven together on a journey like this and, over time, they become the fabric a community wraps around itself.  We witness each other’s transformation and we are transformed in turn.  Some of what lives on  comes from the lore of the journey,  the things we say to keep going that become  community mantras, the tales we tell that become the legends of our shared living.  Like Julia, if I am alive and able, I will return for the next walk.  I will be there at the end of the longest day and I will carry a sign that reads; “There’s only a mile and half to go and it’s all downhill.”

What follows are my blog entries from my four days of walking…