Walking News: British Man Gives Up Trek to India Because He Couldn't Speak French, and Other Stories

For my irregularly-scheduled roundup of walking headlines, I would like to share these choice stories from the global highways and byways:

• Try this, sir: "J'ai faim." A British man planned to walk to India with no money to prove a point, but he gave up in Calais because he couldn't speak French. See UPI story here.

• Hey, man, I own this shopping mall. Mall walkers at Jefferson Valley Mall became upset when the mall managers changed the opening times and shut off the mall's second floor. See In Curbing Walking Sprees, a Mall Sets Off Protests by Kate Stone Lombardi, NY Times. March 2, 2008.

• Be careful walking down an unfamiliar hill in the dark. "How a walk in the dark changed my life" by Geoff Strong from the February 20, 2008 edition of The Age in Melbourne, Australia is a chilling tale of how things can go wrong with one false step. Not for the faint of heart.

• Naturalist John Muir was famous for his treks through the Sierras. Hence, his founding of The Sierra Club. A naturalist writes about Muir's walks through the Feather River area of California in an article for the ChicoEr.

• Losing his chops. A man who lost his dentures while walking in the pretty Lake District of England a year ago was recently reunited with his teeth. Read the amazing story here on a Dentistry UK website.

Image: at Broadway and Houston. March 3, 2008, by Walking Off the Big Apple, who hasn't driven a car in over a year.