Corey Smith: 3 Days 3 Ways

     My three "walks" took place on three different days, as the title describes.  First, I walked alone, taking copious notes and photographs, during class on Thursday, September 8, 2011 from 4:47pm to 5:40pm. . Second, I re-walked my original route with my friend, David Meinecke, on the night of Sunday, September 11, 2011 from 7:53pm until 9:04pm. Third, I drove as close to my original route as possible Monday, September 12, 2011. The drive lasted from 7:07pm until 7:21pm. Even though I am born and raised here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my walks were different than any other walks I have taken before, each with its own unique happenings and experiences.  I began each walk from the parking lot behind the Kenilworth East building.

Map of Walks with River Bank

Walk #1:

Describe the parameters of the walk.

     Here is a transcribed copy of my Walk #1 notes:

"I set out going SW on Prospect.  I stopped in at 'Mystery One' and talked to Richard.  A lot of the discussion was about how I am from and illiterate generation.  I retorted that we are considered the most educated generation, despite that we read the least.  We compromised that technology has changed the world we live in, and book reading, especially novel reading, is a lost art.  He recommended I start by reading The Maltese Falcon. 

 I continued SW until Lafayette.  Turned right, going NW.  I passed a man speaking french to his Scottish Terrier. Nice breese.  I saw a classmate up ahead so I turned left onto Farwell.  I must remain alone.  I ran into John Alford leaving Koppa's Fulbeli Deli.  Its great having so many connections in a city!  I doubled back a block on Farwell to walk John home. My classmate is gone.  Now, I'm going on Lafayette again.  Some guys on their porch who I keep passing are whispering about me.  Just passed Oakland on Farwell [Lafayette].  Dead end into Bartlett.  The sun is now shining right on me.  I'm hot in my sweater.  I can't take the heat.

 I go left on Bartlett.  The city buses and cars keep rumbling past making thumps on the bumps.  Now I'm by a woman leaf blowing.  'WURRRRR!' 'Excuse me, I'm raking my leaves.  Turn right on Irving.  The old man with the big beard who rides his bike, I affectionately named 'Blue' rides his bike past me. Another dead end. Left on Cambridge.  5:09, I hope in on time. I follow the sidewalk around to the right. Now I'm on Boylston.  I can hear crickets as I near the river.  I arrive at Caesar's Park. I think this is how I get to a foot bridge across the river I have often seen, but never crossed. Even though I always wanted to.  Descending the stairs (this is my first vertical movement). On the stairs the city almost dissappears except for the constant noise of the highway, I-43. 15 minutes left. As I cross the foot bridge I can see the Marsupial.  It is very windy on the bridge, so much so, I have to stop to write.  (OH! I have to pee, but I can't here.)  The crickets are louder now.  They live in the brush surrounding the footbridge.

I realize I don't know where this bridge leads.  Two men fish below me.  I walk along a wood chip path away from a dead end toward the Marsupial bridge. I read some signs about DNR Walleye and tags. I pass a red bench with leaves of the area done as graffiti.  I can see my favorite houses in Milwaukee.  I reach a road that runs parallel to the woodchip path.  The road is Riverboat.  I pass 'STUBBY's' and go under a bridge.  Humbolt is above me.  I give directions to a car looking for 'Riverview Dorms'. It's 5:30.  I'm close.  I pick up the pace.  Condo's to my left and right. The CARS are back.  I've seen 6 men with dogs. More crickets on the hill to my right. I'm 150 yds from the bridge now.  And, I don't see my classmates. Riverboat turns into Commerce about 200yds back from the Booth St stairs.  I walk up a ramp towards the bridge. 100 yds.  I see my class in the center of the bridge. I'm ten minutes late, but I enjoyed myself too much to have gone faster.  My class is walking away.  Oh no!  It was 71 degrees f.  Dew point 53 degrees f.  The weather channel say N NE winds, but I think its mostly coming off the lake. I have reached the class. Now we are exchanging notebooks."

Walk #2

     I play competitive Ultimate (frisbee). Many competitive Ultimate players try to throw everyday. An easy way to do this is try to walk with a partner and toss while you walk. For my second walk, I paired up with my teammate and good friend - David Meinecke.  In addition to wanting to throw a disc while I walked, I wanted to walk my route at night, and wanted to follow the buddy system, just in case we encountered some trouble.  Leading someone on my walk felt much different than walking alone.  First off, there was talking.  We talked about the walk, Ultimate, and other small talk like 'If you were an inanimate object, what would you be?'  I often mentioned details to him about my walk, embellishing our journey with experiences from the first.  Walking together created both a bond between David and me and between us and the world around us.  I believe this was the longest walk because not only did we distract one another, but also we experienced separate observations and took time to share them as we walked.

     The world around us was much different at night than during the day.  The sum of this change came down to the fact that considerably wilder animals come out at night.  During the day I saw many dogs with their owners and a few squirrels.  Dog are domestic animals, and squirrels arguably domestic.  At night we saw an entire family of rabbits, heard fish jumping in the river, and listened to a much larger chorus of crickets.  The Marsupial bridge changed the most at night. During the day I saw no animals on the bridge, but at night it is host to hundreds of spiders collecting bugs in their webs.

They line the space between the hand rail and the safety fence.  The biggest ones are over the river. In addition to the spiders, bats swoop down and eat the larger flying insects.  I did not find these animals frightening; however, while we were crossing the foot bridge where I saw people fishing on my previous walk I was scared.  I stopped to take a picture and from a cluster of bushes near the entrance to the bridge we could he men talking.  We pushed forward quickly, since we did not know the intentions of men in the bushes.  We assumed they were homeless people.  I met two last winter who live further north on the river.  Not only are wilder animals out at night, but wilder men are too.  The final sign of things wild was at the end of the Marsupial bridge.  High up on the telephone poll is mounted a beige box.  This box is not so wild itself as it is evidence of trying to control wild human activity.  As we came near the poll, a bright flash was emitted from the box, and a loud speaker chimed 'This is a restricted are. Your photograph has been taken and will be used to prosecute you.'  We thought it strange that the only area we knew of with light up benches was restricted at night.

Walk #3

     I drove my final retracing of my route.  This was by far the fastest of the three, lasting only fourteen minutes. (It should be noted that I did not ride the route via bicycle, which may be faster than driving.) It was like I was in a world with in a world. There was me in my car and my car in world. I rode with the windows up and the radio off. I could hear very little of my surrounding. In fact the only noises I heard were cars and a feint sound of crickets alongside Caesar's Park.  Driving was the most restricted of my modes of transit. Travelling with one other person was slightly restricting because we both had to agree on a decision. Walking alone I was completely free to go where I wanted to. Driving forced me to be on roads, respect one ways, rules of the road, signs, other drivers, etc.  I could not take notes or photographs because I was behind the wheel, driving a manual transmission no less.  The whole experience felt much lonelier and more distant from my surroundings.

"The core idea of experimental geography is that we make the world and, in turn, the world makes us." - Nato Thompson from In Two Directions

      Of the three ways I traveled walking alone gave me the greatest availability to enact the above quote by Nato Thompson.  With two people we added the other person to the equation.  In a car I was barely able to interact with the world, except in restricted ways.  Being alone exploring was exciting. It energized me to go where the journey took me.  I have ADHD and I often "go with the flow". This is both a positive like during this experience, but it can be negative like when I become distracted from accomplishing tasks because of the world around me. The idea at the core of experimental geography is extremely important to investigate particularly as we struggle with becoming a global community influenced by more media and technology than geography.