Walking 85,000 Miles to Aide Humanity and Have Fun

By Tom Kline

Tom Kline has been an adventure racewalker for fifty years. He has walked the remotest lands on our planet, alone and on foot. Experience the sensation of being lost at night walking the vast Sahara Desert and dodging bears, wolves, and screeching puffin birds in his quest to encounter the Arctic Circle. Join Tom as he accompanies desperate Nicaraguan families up remote jungle rivers, avoids bandits across Panama, and confronts opium dealers in Laos. Tom will also escort you through the romance of Europe, the intrigue of South America, and the mystery of Asia and Africa's ancient lands.

Yet Tom Kline is also a humanitarian. To support the global fight against malaria, Tom became the first person to walk 6,500 miles across the barren tundra of Alaska, over the Rocky Mountains, and, nine years later, triumphantly arrive in Key West, Florida. Tom walked from New York to Washington, DC, to plead to Congress on behalf of inner-city poor, and wobbled again hundreds of miles to support drug treatment, funding for juvenile diabetes, and so much more!

Tom Kline's view of life can be summed up as follows: "We can change our complex world one mile at a time, even if it means walking eighty-five thousand of them."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638818830

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Walking 85 Thousand Miles to Aide Humanity and Have Fun!

Thomas Kline

Copyright © 2021 Thomas Kline

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2021

This work is the sole possession of Thomas J. Kline, Jr, the author. The work may not be reproduced in any from without the authors written permission. The many photographs herein were produced by the author. In some few instances, depicting general location scenes, various free service image services may have been used. Postage stamp images depicted were originally distributed by Sovereign Governmental Agencies and are not subject to copyright.

ISBN 978-1-63881-882-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63881-883-0 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Restless Wander (How It All Began)

An Adventurer’s Dream

Camels, and Fear (Walking across the Sahara Desert!)

The Race Is On!

Argentinean Soccer

Rain

A Free Coke

Epilogue: Civilization at a Desert’s Edge

Bears, Wolves, and My Friends, the Innuit People

My Dream Walk: Alaska; Stage 1, Phase 1: Across the Tundra out of Point Barrow

A Mexican Restaurant

Barren Ice, Wind, Snow and Very, Very Cold

Utqiagvik

Fascinating People

Alaska, Stage 1, Phase 2: Crossing the Brooks Range, on Foot of Course

Up in the Air

Find Me a Walking Route

Moose and Grizzly

Crossing the Alaska Tundra in Search of a Dog Team (Stage 1, Phase 3)

Snow Skis

Young People with Potential at the Trapper School

Finally, a Road: Desolation, Wolves, and Black Bears (Dream Walk Stage 2)

Wolf Encounter

The Yukon River

Fairbanks, History on My Mind

Grizzlies Stake Out a Bison

Walking with History: Along the Alaska Highway (Dream Walk Stage 3)

Toolies

Atlati

Enchantment and Danger through Central America

Racewalking the Panama Canal

Walking El Salvador—Tiny and Enchanting

On to My Honduras!

Garifuna Attack

Bananas, Anyone?

Racewalking Land of Intrigue!

Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Zagreb!

Ancient Istanbul

Kuala Lumpur Trot

On to Zagreb!

Laos Trauma

Lost in the Golden Triangle

Hello, Muang Sing

Jungle Woman Runs, from Me!

Bangkok Dreams

Walking Across Challenging Puerto Rico

Coquis, Coconuts, Drugs, and Doris

Across the Spine of La Isla Del Encanto

Iceland, an Elegant Island

Reykjavik Again

Searching for Iceland’s Arctic Circle

Can There Be Magic in a War Zone?

Pistol Walking

Walking the Roads My Soldiers Built

Fascinating Rivers

Walking the Congo River: An Explorer’s Dream

Greeted by Zaireans

Returning to the Congo River Basin

Tanzania, I Am Finally Here!

A Tiny Step to Wipe Out Malaria

Racewalking the Nile River!

My Sphinx

We Must Never Forget the Historic River, Thames

The Yangtze, a River of Contrasts!

The Ganges, a Humanity-Enriched River

Crossing Our World’s Deepest Ocean

Lost Island

The Wedding

The Place Is Known as Guam

Continuing through the Pacific

Hong Kong Ramble

Hong Kong Sharks

Roaming a Philippine Beach

Manila Jaunt

Racewalking Japan

Mighty Tokyo

And Then Nagoya

Oh, Osaka

Kyoto’s Zoo

Hawaii

Molokai

The Mystique of Hawaii’s Big Island

North America, Who Are We?

Travels through Mexico!

Old Monterrey

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Mexico City Explorer

My Mission, Mary, and Melissa!

Race to Malibu

In Santa Barbara

San Luis Obispo

Lucia on the Cliff

Santa Cruz, an Odd Place

El Camino Real

Family Reflections

A Dream Walk for the Ages

Welcome to Yukon Canada

Neighbors Invite Me Home

Crossing the Continental Divide, Again

Grizzly

Dease River Crossing

Secret Gold-Silver Mines

Of Bears and Men

Spellbinding Fraser Canyon

Hello, Idaho!

Snow on My Face!

Yellowstone, What Beauty!

Wind River Canyon

A Date with the Pony Express

Walking Europe, the World’s Fascinating Future!

Camino de Santiago, a Spiritual Walking Journey

On to Pamplona

The Glories of Rural Spain

More Mountain Climbs!

Estella to Los Arcos

Now into Najera

Thrilled and Saddened

Exploring Europe, Walking for Forty-Five Years!

Off to Barcelona

Majorca

Wobbling an Exciting European Isle

Italy and Tears!

A Sister City

Bravo, Florence

Piazza de Duomo

Viejo, Naples!

Ponza, an Italian Hideaway

Am I Really in Europe?

New Heights in Switzerland

German, Odyssey

Nuremberg Judgment

Now This Is Belgium

Mechelen Canal Wonders

Waterloo, a Soldier’s Sadness

Farewell, Belgium

Austria’s Magic

Lichtenstein, Where Are You?

Hungary, Tradition + Potential!

Croatia Remembered, On to Zagreb

The Majesty of France!

Amboise Hustle

Lyon

Paul Bocuse, in Person

Fifty Miles across Paris

On to the Netherlands: Back to Amsterdam

The Hague, Once Again

Portugal, More Than Exciting

Lisbon

Ireland

Snow Walking Dublin!

A Brisk Morning Walk

Sweden

A Stockholm Marathon, Almost!

Stockholm Street Walk

Czech Republic

In and Out of Prague

Mighty Greece and Her Marathoners

The United Kingdom

Ole England, I Miss You!

Can One Racewalker Make a Difference?

Perspectives!

A Walker Wobbles to Washington, DC

How It All Began

On the Road! (To Aid Humanity)

Greetings from Newark, New Jersey

Key to a City, Trenton

On to Philadelphia

A Long Walk to End Drunk Driving

Can One Walker Make Any Difference in Ending Drug Abuse?

Walking Five Hundred Miles to Niagara Falls

Walking into Thundering Niagara Falls!

Off to Albany…to Save a Waterfront Community!

Through Westchester County

He Is a Tall White Guy!

Hello, New York State Assembly Brothers

Walking to End Juvenile Diabetes

Yankee Stadium

Let’s Find a Cure!

Pittsburg, Three River’s Baseball Stadium

Can We Make It to Heaven Walking?

1,560 Miles Across Williamsburg

Legal Services for the Poor

A Youth Hispanic Day Parade

Farewell!

Appendix

Vital Reads

To Doris, the love of my life,

who has always supported me on these racewalking adventures

around our complex world

Introduction

Alone at the North Pole!

Excited, and worried, at the Equator!

Hello, friends!

Some of you may refer to me as the world’s ultimate long-distance walker. Others, to be honest, consider me odd. I have racewalked, most often alone, more than eighty-five thousand miles. At a thousand strides per mile, that distance equals eighty-five million strides!

As an engineer, I have kept meticulous logs of my racewalking adventures, literally for the last fifty years! My monthly logs are stored securely on my computer for all to debate, although arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig; the pig quickly discovers that the engineer likes it! There aren’t many areas of our vast world where I have not had the opportunity to walk long, and more often slow, memorable distances.

I have walked across both the North Pole and the Equator. I have wiggled thousands of other miles through sixty different countries. My Dream Walk, completed a few years ago, was mastering the lonely, beautiful, and, from time to time, dangerous trek from the tip of the United States at Point Barrow, Alaska, to the pearly shores of the nation’s southern tip at Key West, Florida. Okay, it did take me nine years to complete this exciting 6,500-mile jaunt.

So here we go. Let’s experience that adventure we call life!

Episode 1

A Restless Wander How It All Began

A Restless Wander (How It All Began)

It is Christmas in the working-class suburbs just north of New York City. The snow is deep, temperatures cold, and the wind howls!

All is not bad. Colorfully wrapped Christmas presents have been neatly arranged (by Santa Claus) beneath a sagging, recently cut pine tree. It rests, supported by rocks, in a steel bucket full of water. This is the same pail we kids fill with soap and use to wash my dad’s beat-up aging Buick automobile in the summer.

The fireplace shoots a warming flicker across our living room. To save money, we use the fire instead of our oil burner to heat our home during the winter. The other day, Dad split a fresh pile of logs that he had purchased from a tree farm in Connecticut.

As the logs blaze elegantly, I think of how Dad chopped each of these heavy woodblocks one by one. He used an ax and steel mallet. Move out of the way, Dad had hollered at me. You’ll get splinters in your eyes. Then with one blow, as his arm muscles tensed, he swung the large ax down on the mallet, splitting the log with ferocity.

That’s how my mom taught me to do it in Mountain Top, Dad said proudly (Mountain Top is a small place in the Pocono Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania). Streams of sweat flowed across his thick eyeglasses. No matter; I loved this man by any account. And still do!

Also underneath the half-green, now mostly brown, once-elegant pine tree, Dad’s American Flyer electric toy trains circle a plywood base. He had spent weeks setting them up.

Peter, my younger brother by four years, just learning to read, sees his name on a present. That one is mine, he shouts. Jeanette, my mom, had always carefully marked and counted each present so that all of her five children were treated equally. My older sister Diane, younger sister Jane, and, still in a crib, baby Mary, hug their dolls and a few dresses neatly ironed by Mom after having just been purchased from the United Hospital thrift shop.

I was excited but tried to act like a man, as Mom had taught me, even if I was only eight years old. Then Mom lifted the heavy box, with Santa wrapping paper held together with Scotch tape. This is for you, Tommy, she said. The world is yours to explore.

Eagerly, I tore away the wrapping and gently lifted the contents onto my pajama-clad lap. And there it was: a worldwide postage stamp album!

My first postage stamp album.

Each page had a printed image of stamps from all the countries of the world. But there were no stamps. You have to fill that album with real stamps yourself, Mom instructed. Use money from your paper route to buy them. One day, when you finish your education, you will visit every country in the entire world shown in that album.

And so here I sit today, sometime in the year 2021, hugging that same stamp album. I sip cold Chardonnay, really missing Dad, Mom, Pete, and Mary, who are now having their own walking adventures in that country called heaven. But wait! This story has a happy ending. My adventures racewalking around our wonderful world, and having a fantastic, supportive family, have made my life different, exciting, and, yes, crammed with adventure. Here is my story!

An Adventurer’s Dream

May 30, 2002

I collect interesting books but only keep those that I have read. Not surprisingly, my bookshelf is stuffed with fascinating reads piled eight high or twenty-six across on a shelf, depending on how easy it is for me to pluck them for reference on a moment’s notice. The clutter is well-organized by topic and importance. Murder mysteries are to the right of engineering texts. Medicinal plant tomes are on the shelf just above a collection of comedic materials. My oversize 1950s postage stamp albums protrude from their perch and have a tendency to wrinkle my shirts hanging nearby. Ah, but the top shelf houses the crown jewels: travel books.

They are piled on their side, title out, in four neat rows each ten books high. This is a requirement to allow room for maps, each of which designates a unique, fascinating little corner of the world. Seven of the travel volumes are about the Sahara. I have collected them for what seems like a lifetime. My boyhood dream has always been to walk the Sahara Desert.

Episode 2

Camels, and Fear Walking across the Sahara Desert!

Camels, and Fear (Walking across the Sahara Desert!)

What Is the Sahara Desert?

The Sahara in Northern Africa is the largest hot desert on the earth. She traverses more than 660,000 miles and winds through seven independent nations. Yet there are equally large cold deserts in both the Arctic and on the continent of Antarctica. The Sahara was once-fertile grassland until time, climate change, and perhaps humans and their overuse of water converted this vast wonderland into one of the most enchanting hideaways in the entire world. So why not walk across the Sahara?

My Desert at Last

April 1, 2002

After a three-hour drive through the Moroccan Sahara Desert, the tent city appears. I know then that this is a big race, one that I must finish! It is the famous Marathon de Sables, Marathon of the Sands!

The essentials of the race are that each competitor must carry all of their food and sleeping gear. In addition to carrying a minimum of two thousand calories of food each day, there is the mandatory gear, carefully checked by a team of observers as part of the desert check-in process. Among the required gear are a sleeping bag, flashlight, compass, lighter, bacterial disinfectant, a whistle, signal mirror, antivenom pump, and ten safety pins.

The race Emergency Support Crew supplies flares and, at checkpoints along the route, furnishes carefully rationed amounts of water sufficient to prevent dehydration but inadequate to wash off the filth and grime for each day of the arduous competition. Organizers also set up a tent camp at night with each black burlap accommodation fitting about ten neatly cramped competitors. The tents are not tall enough to stand up in. It is not a problem. I only have to cover 150 miles in six days. I’ll survive!

No Room at the Inn

By the time I arrive, the large tent housing the Americans is already full. You’ll have to stay with the Canadians, a race organizer shouts. Normally a tent houses fourteen competitors; the Canadian tent would be home to only nine of us. To comfort me, one of the organizers proclaims, Don’t worry, there’s another foreigner. He’s Korean!

My tentmates are five fire rescue heroes from Montreal, a runner from Toronto, and the young Korean. I was delighted. This was a good group. Alas, I was the oldest person in the tent by a few decades!

The Race Is On!

A gathering of the bravest.

April 2, 2002, Morocco

Well after sunup, a small army of competitors line up in the steamy Sahara sand, encouraged by a makeshift banner and awaiting instructions. Flags honoring each competitor’s country flutter in the burning wind. You must carry all your own gear, we are sternly reminded. The importance of each individual’s emergency flare is emphasized. It may be the only way we can find you if you get lost, the director tells us in French.

I notice the three camels and their Berber shepherds right away. You must finish the day ahead of the camels or you are disqualified. If you are taken out of the race, you must also leave the camp. No exceptions! As a racewalker, I know my challenge will be harder than most of the runners since I will be moving slower. Undeterred, at the sound of the gun, I wobble off into the morning heat, wishing that I had studied French.

I am wearing two supply packs, one on my back and the other on my hip, in an effort to optimally distribute the load. The half-gallon water bottle supplied by the race crew is a welcome addition to the weight. I push on confidently following the tracks through the sand of the hundreds of runners ahead of me. Unfortunately, I lost the required compass on the bus ride from Marrakesh over the rugged Atlas Mountains. During the mandatory gear check, I had sneakily borrowed a compass from another competitor, hoping I would be able to navigate the bleak terrain without the aid of this lifesaving instrument.

I survive the first day’s difficult trek. Two hours after I finish, the camp is roused by the sound of an alarm bell and echoing whistles. The three camels are arriving.

Yards in front of them, a desperate runner, apparently injured, limps rapidly across the day’s finish line. An hour later, the last two runners, the first to be disqualified, unhappily enter the camp.

Food and Feet

Morocco

The next morning, it is dark when I awaken. I am the first one to rise from the flimsy tent. I have already consumed all my prepared food. It is now crunch time. I need to build a fire, cook oatmeal, and liberally sprinkle it with sugar, if I am going to make it through the twenty-one-mile desert jaunt designated for this day.

Because I had tight plane connections from Parris to Morocco, I did not check a bag. Rather, I carried all my gear on board. Fortunately, I was in first class, where I was allowed to bring an extra travel bag. The downside was I was not able to bring a stove and the related flammable starting fluid or a lighter. Stupidly, I never thought of the need for matches, so they were also absent.

Fortunately, I had been a good Boy Scout (a long time ago). The training served me well today. In the cool morning darkness, I located some stones, built a fire ring, and after many tries was able to start a small blaze with the aid of scraps of toilet paper and sparks created by slapping two stones together. There wasn’t much kindling wood available. The fire lasted just long enough to heat the oatmeal and provide me with two cups of piping-hot, aromatic, instant coffee, which I desperately needed more than any food.

Day two begins with the familiar competitor roundup under the banner. As we line up to begin the day’s journey, a group of four Berber men rapidly pull down the tents and load them onto waiting trucks that would be driven to the next campsite many miles off in the distant horizon. At noon, I encounter a river. There is no bridge. While jumping between large boulders, which mark the most used crossing by other competitors ahead of me, copious amounts of water saturate my socks.

Soon after, I feel the initial irritation of blisters beginning to form on both feet. At an aid station where we are resupplied with another bottle of water, I know it is time to stop and fix my feet. How does that old expression go? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of care.

With the aid of a nurse, I clean the blisters, needing to get going again. When the three camels enter the rest area, I start rapidly racewalking again. These ugly beasts will not get to the day’s finish before me!

For the rest of the race, I stop at least once each day and again in camp to repair my feet. This, in the end, is a winning strategy even if it does slow me down.

Argentinean Soccer

April 4, 2002

Starting day three, thirteen runners have yielded to the difficult terrain and are on their way back to the comforts of cities and towns around the world. I, however, am starting to get into a groove. I make a fire each dawn, down sugarized oatmeal, savor hot coffee, racewalk hard, fix my feet, drink plenty of water, and then…

Crash on the hard sand (insulated by a thin air mattress) for a not-so-restful night’s sleep. I have also learned to use my shoes for a pillow. Some unlucky runners had aired their shoes outside the tent at night, providing a comfortable bed for the plentiful scorpions and snakes.

For the first time, I began to notice the other competitors. Two Moroccans, brothers, led the pack at the start and at the end of each day’s stage. Their backpacks were so small, however, it was clear that they were not carrying a sleeping bag or all of their required gear. One of them had a heavier pack. I suspected he, or someone else, carried the rations for the lead runner. Then there was the strongly built blonde woman from Germany. She was accompanied by her boyfriend. On two days, the woman wore no pack at all. But who was I to complain? After all, I was missing a five-ounce compass.

Competitors too seemed to religiously keep to the rule of not sharing food. As a result, I was perpetually hungry.

Accompanying me at the back of the pack was a somewhat heavyset Argentinean banker. Every day, he carried a large, hefty banner, which furled in the slight breeze in honor of his favorite Buenos Aires soccer team. Now this was a fan supporter par excellence! Since the flag slowed him down to my pace, we spent many hours examining the problems of the world.

Racewalking through an oasis.

Lost in the Sahara, at Night

April 5, 2002

By noon on the fourth day, the stifling heat is taking its toll on my body. My inner thighs have begun to chafe. Liberal globs of Desitin cream partially hide the pain. I am grateful for my broad-brimmed hat with its cloth neck protector. This vital accessory, however, did not stop streams of perspiration from rolling into and burning my eyes.

The wind has picked up. Globs of sand now cake my hands and fill my lips and nostrils. I am uncomfortable.

By late afternoon, I have only racewalked fifteen miles. Today, the required finishing distance is fifty miles. It is clear now that I will be spending the night in the desert.

At twilight, there is a final race checkpoint. I am well behind most runners but stop anyway to again check my feet and change socks. As I head out, a nurse shouts firmly, Don’t go into the desert alone!

With so far still to go, and determined to never quit, I immediately wander solo into the desert and the approaching darkness, pretending that I do not understand French!

The lights of the checkpoint quickly fade behind me. My headlamp shows the way as I follow the well-trodden route taken by runners ahead of me. Then pain strikes!

I fall to the ground. My left hamstring has tightened. Crawling in the sand liberally sprinkled with sharp rocks, I desperately try to massage the aching muscle. Many minutes pass. Thankfully, the pain subsides. Struggling, I stand up, massage the aching muscle with a wad of Ben Gay ointment, and continue following the now fading trail. The wind picks up. Wads of sand and pebbles shower me. In the melee, my fine protective hat flies gleefully into a deep ravine. When the gusts finally subside, I look down. The trail I have been following has been completely obliterated. In front of me are giant 150-foot sand dunes. I know they stretch for at least twenty miles. I reflect that I only have fifteen hours to cross these daunting barriers when I realize, too, that I was not only alone but lost.

The emergency flare is a good safety device. If you ignite it, there are two consequences. First, the competitor will likely be rescued. Second, if you use the flare, you will also instantly be disqualified. What to do? I stand silently in the darkness, assessing my options. I could return to the checkpoint, but I am not sure where it is. I could move forward, but I do not know where I am going.

I had learned long ago that sometimes doing nothing for while is the best course of action when your next move is uncertain. And so, having no place to sit, I stand and wait. Having lost my hat, I use a handkerchief to make a head bandanna while carefully brushing away the lumps of sand that have accumulated on my balding scalp.

My patience is prudent. Within half an hour, two British runners scurry up to me. I had seen their reflector lights in the distance. They reluctantly agree to let me come with them, and their compass, if I can keep up with them. Every few feet, I am sucked up to my knees by the soft, ever-moving sand. I follow the lead of the runners, imitating them as I crawl like a dog from the middle of the dune to the top. Hollering wildly somehow helps me maximize my effort. After climbing the third dune, the British runners, not too politely, tell me I am holding them back and leave me to fend for myself in the bleakness of the desert night. Am I afraid? Hell yes! Am I confident I will finish this race? Hell yes!