Leif Olson

American Discovery Trail candidate here [enter “deep breath” emoji here]!I guess I’m a WEBO, though at times I’ll also be an EABO and then back to a WEBO (with a touch and dab of NOBO and SOBO now and again). Cool, love the vernacular! Appropriate, the tongue twisting, as I think I may have lost my mind. No worries, that’s what AI is for these days! So here we are…I was born in a place and a time some too many years ago. Some crazy stuff happened (some good, a little great, a fair bit terrible…the emoji that does that “eeehh” thing, plus the head tilted, laughing/crying one). And [one more deep breath] here we are…again! I’m a good many things (writer, artist, educator, ill-planner…and some other stuff I can sometimes remember). I write as a praxis of living and live as a praxis of writing…I’m a dreamer, the kind that equates magic and science and then goes to grad school (more than once!) to prove it. I’m grounded, I’m aware…I’ve been there. As for the rest, I’ll have time to share. I’m gonna be out here awhile (re-enter the aforementioned emojis). And before I get tired and forget…I appreciate ya’ll for being here! Cool, let’s do it!!

Posts

The Colorado Rockies: Denver to Grand Junction

The Colorado Rockies: Denver to Grand Junction

I’ve been hanging out in Grand Junction, Colorado the last couple days. I’ve been searching for a metaphor to anchor my writing as I sit effectively at the half way point on a 6800 mile trail, now six months spent living, walking and struggling along a seemingly invisible path as the world continues spinning all about. This morning I woke from a mostly sleepless night to my feet swollen like pontoons with all those unsettling shades of purple and blue. I think I’ve found my metaphor!

Sep 21, 2024 : Leif Olson
Northern Trials: The Great Plains of Iowa and Nebraska

Northern Trials: The Great Plains of Iowa and Nebraska

The same refrain has been ringing in my ears for hundreds, going on thousands, of miles: “I got here on foot!”

Aug 11, 2024 : Leif Olson
The Illinois Eight: In Photos and Wandering Thought

The Illinois Eight: In Photos and Wandering Thought

The screaming, oh the screaming! I’ve never known trees to scream so loud as in the northwestern Indiana-northeastern Illinois region...

Jul 26, 2024 : Leif Olson
ADT Day 83: 40 mi/18 hrs to Illinois

ADT Day 83: 40 mi/18 hrs to Illinois

5:00 am: I wake in yet another field of corn just off the road, the early light reminding me I can ill afford to sleep in, surrounded by private land (including where I’m pitched)...

Jun 21, 2024 : Leif Olson
The ADT East in 10, Midwest Beginnings

The ADT East in 10, Midwest Beginnings

For the last 10 days and counting I’ve been averaging 20-25 miles per day, but I’ve clocked 23-25 on more than half of those days. Tonight I stopped at 24, but only because I found a sheltered opportunity to fully charge my batteries after days of tossing twenty percent on my phone in a bathroom or wherever I could manage before re-hitting the trail with a feverish urgency…

Jun 3, 2024 : Leif Olson
Notes from the Field: Along the Buckeye Trail Towards Cincinnati

Notes from the Field: Along the Buckeye Trail Towards Cincinnati

54 days and counting on the American Discovery Trail: I crossed the bridge from Parkersburg, West Virginia into Belpree, Ohio late in the evening as the sun was setting. I knew camping might be a tad sketchy that night, but I had a package to pick up at the post office…

May 19, 2024 : Leif Olson
Reflections and Moments: The (Low) Highlands of West Virginia

Reflections and Moments: The (Low) Highlands of West Virginia

One month and counting on The American Discovery Trail: This walk turned one month old just a few days ago. As I sit tonight on a bed in the motel I just checked into, a 22 mile day 34 is just behind me. I’ve walked 520 miles total and 440 of those in the first month. I walked into Bridgeport, West Virginia tonight on blown out shoes and sore feet, stores recently closed and the next opportunity too many miles away...

Apr 29, 2024 : Leif Olson
Delaware, DC and the C&O

Delaware, DC and the C&O

Days 4-15 on the American Discovery TrailBy the end of day three I was anxious to get out and get walking again. It had been raining all day and I had the fortune of a dry place to stay.

Apr 9, 2024 : Leif Olson
The ADT: Days 1-3 in Delaware

The ADT: Days 1-3 in Delaware

What a privilege and blessing to have, somewhat by accident, walked into Cape Henlopen in the middle of the night under a nearly full moon. The beauty, the solitude, the undiluted or convoluted auditorium of nature quite appropriate for the journey I’m about to take...

Mar 28, 2024 : Leif Olson
The ADT: Reflections Aboard an Eastbound Train

The ADT: Reflections Aboard an Eastbound Train

For days now I’ve been pacing about my sister’s living room, passing time…just passing.  The rise—the fall; the tick—the tok…time passing.  For the most part my affairs are in order, that is, the mess packed away in a box (both symbolic and literally!).  In a lot of ways that’s how this feels, as I now sit in an upper deck seat staring out the window of an eastbound train...

Mar 22, 2024 : Leif Olson