Labor Day picnics: Make yours memorable. Tips and where to go suggestions

by Jamie Rhein on

Katie’s post on how to turn a Labor Day barbecue into a multi-cultural affair is a mouth-watering read that gave me the feeling that the sweet Italian sausages I bought for a cook-out could use some jazzing up. Put Katie’s read together with tips I picked up this summer during a chat with one of Hip Hostess’s event planners, Amber Cleary, and Labor Day could easily be turned into an event to remember fondly when you’re back at work on Tuesday. (Hopefully, that good mood will take you all the way to the next weekend.) If you look past your backyard for a picnic location, even better..

I tried a couple of Amber’s ideas out on my last picnic when I headed to the Columbus Symphony’s outdoor Picnic with the Pops concert with Christopher Cross.

Amber’s mantra about making an event special and personal, gave me more umph when I thought of putting together the fixin’s, something that Katie touched upon when she suggested dressing up Labor Day fare with a cultural twist.

Here are the ideas, plus suggestions for simple places to take your picnic for the last holiday of summer. (This photo was taken last Labor Day as Yourdon strolled around Central Park in Manhattan.)

Amber’s Tip #1 (plus my interpretation): Depending upon the number of people in the group, pack salads and side dishes in Chinese food carry-out boxes–the small size. Each person gets his or her own box (or boxes) depending upon what you put in them. This makes food transportable, and once the food is eaten, you can throw the box away. An advantage is that there won’t be a bowl to take home, and you won’t need to bring plates or serving spoons.

For my Picnic with the Pops outing, I made Amber’s Shrimp and Orzo Salad and Fruit Salad with Lime Dressing. Here’s a fruit salad recipe from the Food Network that has a tropical twist and another version served up in a martini glass here. For a version of a shrimp and orzo salad from Cooking Light, click here.

More food container suggestions:

Tip # 2. Here’s a tip that I found on Amber’s blog. Desserts like pudding can be served in a jar. She’s done this with chocolate mousse. Each person get his or her own jar. Jars can be recycled or taken back home for the next picnic.

Tip # 3. Put dry type eats in origami containers. I was at a party once where a snack mix was served in a handmade paper bowl. Very cool, and a Japanese tradition that adds a cultural flair. Amber has served individual packages of cookies in handmade boxes. If the bowl interests you, here’s a link to a how to make one.

Tip #4. How about flat bottomed ice-cream cones? Then you can eat the container. Trail mix would be great, I think. Each could be wrapped in Saran wrap or paper to keep the goods from falling out.

Tip # 5. For beverages, consider individual water bottles. When I met Amber, she handed me a Camelback water bottle filled with a Sauza Peach Margarita, a lovely concoction of DeKuyper Luscious Peachtree Schnapps Liqueur, DeKuyper Signature Triple Sec, Sauza Tequila, sour mix and lime. It was absolutely yummy.

Think of any cold beverage and water bottle pairing. This would save on cups. Water bottles could be labeled with people’s names. Better yet, tell people to bring their water bottles to the picnic and you’ll fill it with something special. It doesn’t need to be an alcoholic version of something special, but. if you’re looking for spiked drink suggestions, check out the DeKuyper’s Web site Mix Master page.

With drinks and food in hand, don’t forget the details that can make your Labor Day picnic more personal and special.

  • A cloth table cloth, either to spread on the ground or put over a table. Mine is from India. It’s colorful, lightweight and easy to carry.
  • A real basket. It doesn’t have to be a picnic basket, but is large enough to hold the tablecloth, utensils and whatever else you want to bring along to set the scene. (At Picnic with the Pops, I’ve seen candles and flowers.)
  • A cooler to hold whatever food you’re bringing along. The older I get, the more a cooler with wheels sounds like a good idea.
  • Something to sit on that offers back support. The older I get, the more I want something to sit on.

For a hiking picnic, divide up food into individual cold pack type lunch bags for each person to carry his or her own, or divide up the food so each person is carrying part of the meal.

Instead of staying in your backyard for Labor Day, consider these options that are possibly close to home. The more portable your picnic, the more travel friendly:

  • A cemetery. No, don’t eat on a grave. Many older cemeteries are equipped with ponds and grassy areas for spreading out a blanket, eating a meal and enjoying solitude. Many, like Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, where writer James Thurber is buried, have become bird sanctuaries thanks to the urban sprawl that has taken up swatches of their habitat..
  • A city or a metro park. Many metropolitan areas have parks that serve as an oasis for bike riders, roller bladers and nature hounds. Often the shelter houses and picnic tables are first come, first serve, but even without a shelter find a shade tree, spread out your tablecloth and settle down for an afternoon of leisure.
  • A college campus. Many universities have public spaces edged with massive, leafy trees and grassy lawns.
  • The grounds of an historic site. Many tourist attractions have picnic areas attached. Bring your picnic along while you learn more about the background of the area. Before you go, make sure the site is open. Many sites have had to cut back hours due to budget woes.
  • A lake shore-From The Great Lakes to a small lake that not many people know about, a lake shore picnic offers views of the sky as well as the water.
  • A river bank. Scope out a spot where the foliage is less dense and get comfortable.
  • A beach–These are the days when the water may be too cold for a swim, but perfect for a long walk on the sand after a meal.
  • A field in the middle of nowhere— Drive out of town until you get to the middle of nowhere, most probably on a country road and look for a spot that calls to you.
  • Along a trail. Divide your meal into various spots along the trail to give you motivation to keep going to as far as you want to head and back.

And here’s a Web site dedicated to picnic spots across the United States.

Whatever you do this Labor Day, take a tip from Amber and make it personal and fun.

Hiking Hadrian’s Wall: Day Three–The Underwater Temple

by Sean McLachlan on

After yesterday’s first glimpses of Hadrian’s Wall, I’m anxious to see what’s ahead. I hitch a ride from Barrasford back to the Path from an old woman whose son and his boyfriend are hiking the route in the other direction. Just over the bridge spanning the North Tyne and past the little town of Chollerford is Chesters Roman Fort with its extensive museum. It doesn’t open for another hour and I decide to head out. I have 12 miles to hike and I don’t want to lose an hour of daylight. Funny how our goals limit us.

There’s a severe weather advisory for today and as I make my way over hilly farmland the skies to the north and south are ominously dark, yet overhead patches of pale blue show between the clouds. Every dry step is a bonus.

At the curiously named hamlet of Black Carts I see my first well-preserved section of the wall. Portions of it are waist high and Milecastle 29, so named because it’s on the 29th Roman mile from Segedunum, stands even taller. I’ve been seeing a steady trickle of hikers going both directions, and at the Milecastle I meet none other than famous English guitarist Geoff Easeman, who kindly takes a picture to prove that even though I’m 40 I can make it 29 Roman miles.

One downside to the Hadrian’s Wall Path is that a modern road follows it along its entire length. This started as a military road built in 1754 after the Jacobite rebellion. The English army found the going pretty rough in this part of the country and decided to add a road to their many defenses against the Scots. They didn’t need to worry about Clan McLachlan though. We all got slaughtered at Culloden.

There aren’t many cars, and at times the road strays from the path far enough that I can ignore it, but now I have to cross it and pass through a parking lot to get to my next goal–an ancient temple. The wind has picked up and I have to put extra energy into each step. I hope the rain keeps away until I get good shots of the temple. At the parking lot I come across one of the Path’s more pleasant surprises, a guy with a portable espresso machine in the back of his car. A double shot is overpriced but he knows I don’t give a damn. I take delicious hot sips behind the shelter of a low wall as the wind howls over an almost treeless countryside. The land has become more barren, remote, and besides the espresso guy and a couple of other hikers I’m alone with the horizons.

Now fully jazzed, I head over to the temple. It’s a Mithraeum, sacred to the god Mithras. This deity originated in Persia and became a favorite of Roman soldiers. His cult was hugely popular and a major rival to early Christianity. Mithras, you see, was born on December 25, had Sunday as his holy day and died to save humanity. His worshipers used to gather to share bread and wine and his priests wore a garment similar to that of Catholic bishops. As Christianity became more powerful, Mithraeums became prime targets.

Mithraeums were built underground to resemble a sacred cave. The recent rains have turned the temple into a pool, with just the tops of the walls poking out. The three altars remain above water and carry a strange allure. One has a few offerings of flowers and coins, left by travelers passing this desolate spot. I throw a tuppence on there in the hope that the old god will keep back the storm. Any righteous tirades in the comments section will be ignored due to the fact that it worked. More or less.

%Gallery-71867%As the land gets hillier and human habitation almost disappears, ancient remains stand out more clearly. An artificial hill ringed by a ditch marks a fort from Anglo-Saxon times, and not far off are faint traces of a Roman camp, while burial mounds from long-forgotten chieftains dot distant ridges.

The hills give way to crags now, steep promontories with sheer northern faces of stone. As I go up one crowned by a little cluster of trees the clouds open up in a sudden squall of cold, pelting rain that’s trying it’s best to turn into hail. The wind whips to an angry roar and I realize the clouds that are raining are actually a good half mile to the southwest. The wind is carrying the rain all that way to smack in my face.

Good old Mithras hasn’t let me down, because this happens just a few steps from the copse. I hurry under the cover of trees, pull out my raincoat from my pack, and put it on. By the time I make it the hundred yards to the other side of the trees it’s stopped raining.

I descend the far slope of the crag as the clouds break and their shadows glide over the landscape. A little further on I come to Housesteads, one of the best preserved Roman forts on the route. At a tiny little museum I sit down next to an altar of the Three Hooded Gods and munch on a chocolate bar as kids stare at me. This site is even better preserved than Segedunum. I walk on steps where centurions once trod, and run my hand over the floor of the stable, cleaner now than it was back in the day. The land is rough here, and to the south of the fort I can see terraces cut by prehistoric farmers. They were ancient by the time the legions came here and reused them. I wonder if the Romans thought much about the people who had made them or if they were simply grateful to have a lucky break in a harsh land, like the early farmers in Phoenix who cleaned out old Hohokam canals and reused them to water their fields.

The sky is gray and lowering as I continue on my way, but it’s only a couple more ups and downs over crags before I make it to my stopping point for tonight–a friendly country pub called the Twice Brewed Inn in a tiny village of the same name. Nobody really knows where the name comes from. There are lots of stories related to how the residents preferred stronger beer than the villagers of nearby Once Brewed. Old maps show that the place name existed before the hamlet did, when there was only a Drovers road passing between two hills. Since an old Scottish term for hill was “brew”, that might be the answer.

Whatever the origin, I get twice brewed myself from a couple of pints of local ale and a massive pile of Cumberland sausages. My appetite has been huge on this hike. The pub is a loud, friendly place full of locals and hikers, and the owner is an interesting guy who has made the inn as ecologically friendly as possible. He has his own treatment system for non-solid waste that uses no energy. The waste simply flows into an artificial wetland where the reeds and other plants act as a natural filter.

A gut-stuffing meal later, I head back into the night to get another look at the crags. The skies are vast here, bigger than anything I’ve seen since I moved away from Arizona, and they still glimmer a dim blue at nine o’clock on a late summer night. The fields are a darkening green with the crags a pale brown. There’s no sound except for the rush of a hidden stream and the distant bleating of sheep. Other than the pub I see only two distant lights, one at the base of the crags, and another to the south on a nearby ridge. The southern light winks out. It’s bedtime in farm country. I head to sleep too. Sixteen miles tomorrow.

Next: Day Four–over the crags

You can read the entire series here.

Hiking Hadrian’s Wall–Day Two, the first glimpses of the wall

by Sean McLachlan on

The second day of my hike across England dawns clear, a good omen considering the steady drizzle I endured yesterday. I feel glad to be out of Newcastle. There’s something deeply satisfying about walking out of a city and waking up the next morning breathing fresh air.

In the breakfast room of Houghton North Farm hikers headed either way along the Hadrian’s Wall Path swap information and anecdotes. I feel like I’m back in my early twenties, hopping from hostel to hostel in Europe and the Middle East. The owner doles out advice on the trail conditions and I listen to her every word. I have fifteen and a quarter miles to walk before my next bed.

“Do you know what you do with the shell of a soft-boiled egg after you’re finished?” she suddenly asks the room.

Blank stares all around.

“You smash it up, otherwise witches will sail out to sea in it and sink the ships,” she explains. Then she blushes a little. “Oh, I don’t believe that of course, but I do it just the same.”

That’s a new one on me. Perhaps I should ask her for a charm against rain.

But I don’t need one. As I leave Heddon-on-the-Wall the only clouds are puffy and white, broken by swaths of brilliant blue. The trail runs through farmers’ fields and up and down hills. I’m on the line of the Wall, but it takes some attention to notice. I occasionally see the remains of the ditch that lay to the north of the Wall and the Vallum, a ditch and double rampart, that stood to the south. They look like frozen waves in the harvested fields.

There are other traces too. Hadrian’s Wall had Milecastles, fortified gates really, every Roman mile along its length, and I notice that everywhere my map says there’s one there is now a gate into a farmer’s field. The stonework just below the surface meant no crops could grow on that spot, but it provided a solid base for driving carts. In some places I can see faint outlines of these rectangular structures. I begin to examine the drystone walls and farmhouses I pass, wondering if the more worn, weathered stones were taken from the Wall in some remote century and put to new use.

Up a hill and across a field and I come to the first strip of Hadrian’s Wall still standing above the surface (pictured here). I stop and touch it. I’ve been to hundreds of ancient sites, and dug up a fair number of them when I was still an archaeologist, but I’ve never gotten over the thrill of running my hand across old stone.

It’s easy to forget when looking at some low jumble of rock that it was once the center of some people’s lives. This Wall was a landmark for thousands of people not too different from us. The Roman Empire resembled our own in so many ways. We owe much of our architecture, language, and system of law to the Romans, but we owe them something else too–the idea of a multicultural society. Rome was a civilization whose citizens, generals, and even emperors weren’t just Italian, but Spanish, British, Arab, and African. The Empire was the first truly multicultural state, where race was no barrier and everyone could practice their faith freely. That is, of course, if you didn’t challenge the authority of the emperor like the Druids, Jews, and Christians did.

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I pass the remains of Vindobala Roman fort, now just a rocky field good only for the grazing of cattle. A few forlorn stretches of wall poke out of the soil over the next few miles. I pass lush meadow and a reservoir rich with bird life before coming to the peaceful hamlet of Halton. Here stands Halton Castle, a single tower made of reused Roman stone with a later house attached. These sturdy little forts, called pele towers, dot the borderlands and protected locals during the many attacks by the Scots. In fact, this 14th century tower is actually a replacement for an earlier one the Scots destroyed.

It’s now owned by the Blackett family, specifically Sir Hugh Francis Blackett, 12th Baronet and an heir to a direct line of Blacketts who married into the Halton dynasty. In more than 700 years this place has been owned by two families. I’d love to knock on the door and see if the baronet is at home, but I doubt he’d want to speak to a backpacker with a colonial accent and cow shit on his boots. A Baronet may be one step lower than a Baron, but it’s still several steps above me.

So I content myself with the overgrown churchyard next door, where tombstones moulder under gnarled oaks and the great tomb of the Haltons still bears the weather-beaten family crest. It’s peaceful place and I have it to myself except for a young couple making out on a bench (is there nowhere else?) but I’m intrigued by what I’ll find along the Wall and head back out on the trail.

The bucolic mood is abruptly interrupted by the appearance of the A68 cutting across the Path. Running in a straight line across much of eastern England, it’s built atop a Roman road called Dere Street. Many European highways follow Roman roads. How the modern world moves is dictated by engineers who have been dead for millennia.

The highway is soon behind me and I notice that habitation is becoming scarcer. The farms and hamlets are fewer and farther between, and the fields are giving way to uncultivated wildlands, what the lords and kings used to call “wasteland” since it didn’t produce taxable crops. The fragments of Hadrian’s Wall are becoming longer and taller, there having been fewer people in this wild region to have taken away stones for their own use.

On an open, windswept high ground pattered by a light rain I come to the site of the Battle of Heavenfield. In 634 AD, when the land was a patchwork of little kingdoms and the Wall and all other Roman buildings were already crumbling, King Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd, Wales, invaded the divided kingdom of Northumbria. Facing him was Oswald, King of Bernicia, one half of the divided Northumbria. The Welsh marched up Dere Street and found Oswald’s army waiting for them. Oswald had picked his ground well. The right side of his army was protected by Hadrian’s Wall, now an overgrown ruin but still high enough to stop the Welsh advance, and his left was protected by a sheer crag. The Northumbrians slaughtered the Welsh and Cadwallon was killed. Oswald went on to unite the Northumbria and became one of the most powerful kings of his time. He spread Christianity to areas of Britain that were still pagan and he’s now venerated as a saint. This region is still called Northumbria.

A long, steady slope takes me down to the North Tyne river valley and the town of Chollerford. I’ve walked 15 miles but I’m not done yet. I couldn’t find an open room here and so I’ve booked one at the Barrasford Arms three miles up the road to the north. I’m tired, it’s getting dark, and I really don’t want to walk three miles on a narrow country lane with no shoulder, so I try something I haven’t tried for twenty years–I stick out my thumb.

I’m under no illusions here. I’m a ragged lone male on a lonely country road at twilight. Who’s going to stop? The first guy speeds past with a look of contempt. The next two cars are driven by lone women, no hope there, followed by a woman with a pack of kids. A young couple come next, speeding up as they pass and avoiding eye contact. I’m just beginning to resign myself to a dark and somewhat hazardous slog to my hotel when another car slows to a stop. A middle-aged couple tell me to hop in.

After only six cars I’m getting a ride! I’m going to have change my view of humanity completely. They’re a Welsh couple on holiday, and being a good guest I
don’t mention their ignominious defeat at the hands of Saint Oswald.

“So you’re a historian?” they say after we introduce ourselves. “The last person we picked up was a history teacher from Taiwan.” Not only do they pick up hitchhikers, but they make a habit of it! In a few minutes I’m in my hotel with a pint in my hand and dinner in the oven. Thank God Oswald didn’t kill all the Welsh.

Tomorrow: Day Three–The Underwater Temple

Read the entire series here.

All photos by Sean McLachlan unless otherwise noted.

Undiscovered New York: An interview with Scouting NY

by Jeremy Kressmann on



When Gadling first started the Undiscovered New York series, our goal was to bring New York visitors a totally different perspective on this famous city. To show you the amazing forgotten places and stories that lie just below the surface, waiting to be explored.

Our passion for uncovering these forgotten spaces is exactly how we stumbled upon Scouting NY, the blog of a New York City film scout who spends his days scoping out potential NYC locations for use in feature films. We recently had a chance to speak with the creator of Scouting NY, the writer known mostly as “Scout,” to talk about New York’s undiscovered spaces, urban exploring and some of NYC’s most unique spots. Take a look:

Tell our Gadling readers what you do here in New York.
I work in New York City as a film location scout. Basically, I get hired by film productions to help find and secure locations for shooting in the New York area.

In the early stages, this means searching for any location mentioned in the screenplay: a back alley, a luxury penthouse apartment, a subway station, etc. Sometimes we turn to locations we know of from experience, other times we literally walk street by street. We try to provide the director with as many options as possible. Sometimes, we find the perfect place immediately. Other times, it’s more of a grind, often in part because the director does not know what he or she wants. I was on a job where we scouted about 200 different apartments to find the perfect one, for a scene that was no longer than 30 seconds in the final film.


What was your reason for starting your blog, Scouting NY?

My job is basically to stare at New York, and when you really take the time to stop and look around, you start to notice things you NEVER see on your daily commute. I kept a mental list going for a while, and would point places out to friends, often generating the reaction: “I’ve walked by that a zillion times and never noticed that!” Almost a year ago, I decided to start documenting my finds on a blog, in part to draw attention to things that have a bad tendency of disappearing forever.

How did you get interested in exploring the “forgotten” places of New York?
I have a natural curiosity for trying to find the hidden places and gems of a city. I’m not sure where it stems from, but I always seem to find my gaze landing on some unusual stuff. Everyone else will be staring at the Empire State Building, and I’m looking across the street at an ancient Bloomingdale’s building ad. Maybe it’s just a short attention span?

What is it about undiscovered areas of New York that makes them worthy of a visit?

New York is a city that is shared by millions, and yet, in finding these hidden treasures, you can sort of claim a piece of it for yourself in spirit. Also, New York has more history crammed into it than nearly anywhere else in the US, in part because Manhattan is an island. Because the city couldn’t sprawl, it had to constantly tear down and rebuild. Luckily, remnants of older times have a way of sticking around, and I find it to be very interesting to know that your apartment building might have a history of being, say, both an old age home AND a brothel.


You’re a big advocate of the preservation of historic buildings and places. Why is it important we preserve these spaces instead of redeveloping them for new uses?

It is important because they’re one of a kind works of art, testaments to an older generation which valued quality and craftsmanship far higher than we do today. Once historic buildings and places are torn down, they’re gone forever. You cannot rebuild them. It looks like the amazing Admiral’s Row mansions in Brooklyn will soon be torn down in favor of a supermarket parking lot, and it saddens me that the only reason this is allowed to happen is because they’re not in a particularly wealthy community.

I don’t believe that any historical structure should simply exist as a museum piece – it should function with the community, and there is always a way to do this without tearing anything down. You can always build another supermarket parking lot. You will NEVER see a mansion built in the style of Admiral’s Row.


Imagine you visit New York for the first time and want to “get off the beaten path.” Where should you go?

Before doing your requisite Times Square/Chinatown/Wall Street tours, pick a neighborhood off of your map and just go walking around without a guide book. Though I’m a travel guide addict, when I go to ANY new city, I always spend the first day walking around without a guidebook, getting a natural feel for the city. It’s only on day 2 or 3 that I pick up the guide book and start delving into what I might have missed. Personal favorites for visitors in Manhattan are: Morningside Heights, the West 70s/80s near Central Park, and the West Village.


You’ve been all over visiting unique New York locations. Do you have any favorites?

I’ve put together a list of my favorites which you can find here.

Manhattan is probably the most heavily visited Borough by out-of-town visitors. Tell us about one unexpected spot in Manhattan that’s “hidden in plain view.”

At 1st Street and 1st Ave, perched on the roof of a four-story brick apartment building is a Cape Cod beach house. No joke.

Do you have any tips for readers on how to find “unexpected” places of their own as they visit New York? What has helped you make some of your discoveries?

Stop worrying about how quickly you can get from Point A to Point B, and try looking up for a change. It’s all hidden in plain sight – all it takes is the desire to pay attention.

A special thanks to Scouting NY for the interview and for granting permission to use a few photos. Make sure to check out all the amazing places and photos at www.scoutingny.com.

Walking across England along Hadrian’s Wall

by Sean McLachlan on

A few days before my 40th birthday my three-year-old son woke me up by crawling on top of me and squashing his stuffed animals into my face.

“Be nice to me, I’m an old man,” I mumbled around a mouthful of orange fur.

“You’re not old,” he said. “If you are boring you are old.”

Good point, kid. Better celebrate my passing into middle age by doing something interesting.

So the day after I and a few friends held a memorial service for my youth (1969-2009) I set off to the English/Scottish borderlands to walk the UK’s newest National Trail–The Hadrian’s Wall Path. This path cuts across the width of England along Hadrian’s Wall, the Roman Empire’s northernmost boundary. I’d never walked across a country before and figured it would be a good way to prove I’m not totally over the hill. Granted, that part of England is only 84 miles wide, but hey, I’m getting on in years.

Much of what we now call England was taken over by the Romans and called Britannia. Julius Caesar invaded in 55 and 54 BC, but didn’t stay, and it was up to the Emperor Claudius to take over the region in 43 AD. After a lot of fierce fighting Britannia became an important province. The common perception that it was a freezing backwater is untrue. Londinium (now called London) was a thriving provincial capital with impressive public buildings, and there was an extensive system of roads and public works all across the province.

Hadrian’s Wall was built starting in 122 AD by the Emperor Hadrian to defend against incursions by the fierce tribes of Scotland, especially the Picts. It’s the largest Roman monument in the world, a continuous stone wall with earthworks in front and behind it, as well as forts and lookout towers at regular intervals along its length. While it was obviously meant for defense, that was not its only purpose. The Roman legions weren’t constantly fighting hordes of northern barbarians swarming out of the mists. Trade was more common than swordplay, and the wall existed to control movement going north and south. A continuous ditch with earthen ramparts on either side called the Vallum was constructed to the south of the Wall. It’s purpose was to keep Roman citizens from passing to the north without being accounted for. The records are scanty, but they probably had to pay some sort of toll when passing through the Milecastles, fortified gateways found every mile along the Wall.

Most of the forts are located a few miles to the south of the Wall in areas with good farmland. If the sentries on the Wall spotted trouble the legions could march to the rescue. The smaller garrisons on the Wall itself could fight a delaying action until help arrived, or fall back and let the invaders cross over the Wall and get beaten by the legions in open battle.While Hadrian’s Wall is traditionally seen as the northernmost border of the Roman Empire, for a brief period there was a wall 100 miles to the north built by the Emperor Antoninus Pius beginning in 142 AD. The Antonine Wall stretched 37 miles from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde, but was abandoned after about twenty years because keeping the garrisons supplied that far to the north was expensive and the land between the two walls wasn’t very productive. A trail runs along that wall, and if there’s enough interest I might hike that one next year and write about it. Both walls are World Heritage Sites.

Hadrian’s Wall acted as the Roman Empire’s defense to the north for another two centuries until the Romans began to pull resources out of Britannia. Invasions by Persians and Germans were threatening more valuable provinces closer to Rome. One by one the legions were recalled to defend the Roman heartland, and in 410 AD the Emperor Honorius told the province to look to its own defense. More than three centuries of Roman rule had come to an end.

The Hadrian’s Wall Path became the UK’s 15th National Trail in 2003. It meanders for 84 miles along the route of the Wall from the Roman fort of Segedunum in the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne to Bowness-on-Solway, on Solway Firth. The path goes through urban areas, rolling countryside, rough crags, remote highlands, and quiet marshland, giving the walker several different experiences.

I decided to walk from east to west. While this put the prevailing wind in my face, it allowed me to leave Newcastle behind on the first day and to go into ever more remote regions of the English/Scottish border country. I divided the hike into six days of approximately 14 miles each. This allowed for time each day to take detours to the many museums and archaeological sites along the way, take hundreds of pictures, send lots of postcards to my son (he’s all about the postcards), and savor one of the most impressive and evocative hikes I’ve ever been on. So come join me every day for the next week as I walk across England and through 2,000 years of history.

Tomorrow: Day One!