Half an Hour a Day on Foot

Since December 31, 2008, I have walked a half an hour a day. While many Americans do this much and more, I've challenged myself to find a new place to do so every twenty-four hours. Again, one might suggest that such a move is not so noteworthy, but there are two catches.First, there's my day job. As a naturalist and public program coordinator for Mass Audubon, my walks this past year have taken me to some amazing places: the former leper colony on Penikese Island off Falmouth, Massachusetts, for instance, to an ever-expanding boulder field in the Poconos, and the puffin breeding colony on disputed Machias Seal Island off the Maine-Canada border. Wearing my Mass Audubon hat - literally - I've walked in Nova Scotia, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Second, there's my side job. Proudly toting my history degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, I've published thirty books on the history of Massachusetts, the New England coast, and the United States Coast Guard. With each step I've taken in 2009, I've looked at the world around me with both my naturalist's eye, spotting, for instance, 296 species of birds, and my historian's eye, finding the past beneath the trees, among the bushes and alongside the trails. Half an Hour a Day on Foot: An Obsessive Exploration of the Nature of the Northeast is my travelogue of those experiences and adventures, through all seasons, in 365 different places.