Steps: 1,282,074
Miles: 545.76
As I enter the swampy lowlands of Georgia my thoughts turn to me being a Yankee in the deep south.
I consider myself a pick-n-choose history buff, that is, I pick and choose bits that I find interesting and leave the dry, dull stuff for others.
But say "Georgia", and you cannot escape history. Perhaps you see Peaches, Peanuts, Coca-Cola, Scarlett O'Hara or Ty Cobb. Explored by the Spanish Conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1540, one of the orginial 13 colonies, named by the British, the "Province of Georgia" in honor of King George II, site of Revolutionary War battles - Georgia joined the Confederacy on January 18, 1861.
The "Lost Cause" lives on there.
My Virtual Walk will take me through 112 miles of Georgia ending just north of Savannah. --Georgia, has seen many walks on many types. Marches by civil rights activists and counter-marches by the Ku Klux Klan. But, there was another walk that will be long remembered.
On November 15, 1864, Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman began a campaign that would see some 60,000 men march 300 miles from Atlanta, Georgia to Savannah "scorching the earth" and destroying railroads, bridges, public buildings, and consuming the food of the people that lived along the way.
This brutal form of warfare may have helped end the Civil War, but it generated much hardship and bitter feelings, feelings that linger on today, with time only slowly erasing them.
I think to myself, I will tread lightly and strive to leave only the faintest of virtual footprints while enjoying the peaches and peanuts, and slaking my thirst with a cold diet Coke.
