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9/18/2009 10:26:00 AM
If I could walk 8,000 miles...
Couple stops in Howard City on walk from California to Jerusalem
Elisabeth Waldon
Staff Writer
HOWARD CITY - Mike Metras and Petra Wolf are walking east on a pilgrimage - way east.
About 8,000 miles.
The Woodstock, Ill., husband and wife celebrated their eighth month of walking Wednesday with a stop in Howard City. They stayed at the Tour Inn Motel and ate at Charlene's Mystic Cafe before heading east again Thursday along M-46 through Lakeview and Edmore.
Metras, 66, and Wolf, 45, left central California on Jan. 16 headed east - all the way to Jerusalem. They hope to reach New York by November, fly to Lisbon, Portugal, and reach Jerusalem by late 2010 or early 2011.
"People always ask us, 'Are you walking for a cause?'" Metras said. "We are not. We're walking because we like to walk. Two years in the life is not that much."
Metras, a native of Watervliet, met Wolf on an ancient pilgrimage road in Spain. Wolf had walked there from her homeland in Germany.
The couple enjoy walking so much they finally left their jobs to pursue their spiritual urges. Metras wrote technical manuals while Wolf was an environmental engineer.
Metras was raised Catholic but calls himself a "mystic" today. Wolf also was raised Catholic but experienced God for the first time when she went walking by herself.
"For me, walking is meditation," Metras said. "I'm really alive and awake all day long."
"When you walk, the question comes to you, what's really important in life?" Wolf said. "I want to be outside. When you walk a distance or walk through these small towns, the images burn into you."
Metras and Wolf have each gone through four pairs of shoes, as they walk 15 to 20 miles per day. They took Route 66 east from California to Illinois, then headed north to Wisconsin, where they took a ferry across to Michigan. They walked north on the White Pine Trail, which brought them to Howard City. They each carry a backpack and push or pull a cart on wheels.
They are journaling their experience on their Web site, www.walkingeast.com, where new friends can leave comments and watch their progress, as well as purchase books Metras has written about previous walks.
Metras said they have encountered only "wonderful" people along the way who are eager to tell the walkers about their own personal dreams.
"We're like ambassadors of dreams," said Metras with a smile.
Charlene Depner, owner of Charlene's Mystic Cafe, is already living her dream. She opened the historic but vacant building in downtown Howard City earlier this summer.
"It's never too late to be what you wanted to be," she said.
Wolf said the people they meet come into their lives for a reason.
"We're not only going to Jerusalem, we're learning to live day by day," she said. "In every pain you experience in your life, there's a big diamond. Experience the diamond and the pain. Everything that happens on the path has a reason."
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