Footfalls of Autumn

If you are observing Rosh Hashanah this evening, Happy New Year!

And if you’re celebrating the first day of Autumn, today, now is a good time to do an inventory of your comfortable footwear and layered clothing because we are days away from The Month Not On The Calendar But Should Be, Walktober, helping provide some of those great memories we’ll need to get through the coming winter days.

Walktober is almost a quarter of a century old, but has aged quite well. I’m thinking that’s because of all the fresh air, the interesting sights to see and things to do across The Last Green Valley, TLGV, of which Norwich is a part.

TLGV are the people who created Walktober to help those of us who live here to celebrate ourselves as both guests and hosts of intriguing people and fascinating places across the region that you’ll find irresistible.

In this age of technology if your smart phone already has “the app,” a lot of this is a review, but if you don’t or if you prefer a more human touch, there are Walktober Information Centers throughout the area with one right here in Norwich, at the Daniel Lathrop Schoolhouse on East Town Street, facing the Norwichtown Green.

When you’re getting out your wandering shoes have an extra pair or two because TLGV really puts a lot of walk in Walktober. In Norwich alone according to their brochure, there are five events and 39 walks throughout the month.

It starts a week from today, October 1st, at ten in the morning with the Norwich Millionaires’ Triangle, beginning at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick with walkers admiring some of the grand houses along Broadway and Washington Street and learning about the famous families who lived in them during the latter half of the 19^th Century.

Throughout October, you can take part in educational and informative jaunts just about every day throughout the region to include wanderings where you’re welcome to bring your dog, or others where you’ll ride your bicycle and even others where you’ll use your canoe or kayak.  I’m not sure if there’s one that allows bike-riding dogs into a canoe, but you could always ask when you visit an Information Center.

You’ll walk a lot. Trust me. I was two inches taller before last year’s events; that’s how many I went on, though my sense of hyperbole seems to have survived intact. I enjoyed every single opportunity to walk across this city in which I live (and thought I knew) especially when I learned at least a half-dozen new things on every visit, from the Golden Clock Tower through the Fish Lift to a Jaunt Along the Heritage Trail and the Dog Park.

Choose from the Leffingwell House Museum, Benedict Arnold, Zombies (!), the Legend of Uncas Leap and The Future Vision of Norwich, to name but a few; every step and every stop designed to help us make our collective history part of our own personal story.