Walking a few miles in my characters' shoes

One of my favorite things about writing is the research that goes into it.

In Book 3, two characters who are still living in Pittsburgh 7 months into the Blackout finally need to flee. They do this by escaping via walking a nature trail which connects to railroad tracks, then they make their way to the Panhandle Trail. 

While I don't think I'd be able to walk the entire distance they'd have to (especially since it'll take them a few days), I ventured out today to test some of path they'll encounter while on the first leg of relocating to their new home.

 After resting a while in the Thornburg Conservation Park, they decide to take the trail which leads through the woods into Carnegie.

Not the worst view by which to travel, if I do say so myself.

The terrain isn't too bad, either. They'll have walking sticks, of course, so they should be able to maneuver it with little effort.

It's quite beautiful with naturally-made tunnels in some places.

It took me about an hour to get to the end of the trail. It stops abruptly, and you have to climb a small incline to get on the train tracks.

The end of the trail

From there, you follow the tracks for a ways. It takes you behind warehouses on either side where they may be able to scavenge a bit, plus it makes for great scenery:

I eventually got to a railroad bridge, which is where I ended my adventure for today for two reasons: I was losing light and I didn't want to walk through the woods in the dark, and my fear of heights convinced me today was not the day.

I want to conquer my fear of heights, but I suppose I'll cross that bridge some other day (ba dum tiss)

To be fair, I've crossed sketchier bridges than this, but still.

Still, it was a really cool adventure. The trail had a lot of coal just lying around, which will be nice for them to be able to just pick up and use in a fire instead of chopping wood, plus I saw a few other really cool things:

A random pocket knife left sticking out of a pallet. All they'd need is duct tape for the handle, and boo.! Free knife!

Someone's actual makeshift camp: a tarp, two blankets, a bowl, a glass bottle, a pot, and bug spray. It's like my book came to life for me.

So someday when you're reading Book 3, make sure to stop back to this blog entry and see what they're seeing :)