The Great Equestrian Journey

Chapters

Day 1: Baltimare
Day 2: Leaving Baltimare
Day 3: The Train Tracks
Day 4: A Mountain Climb
Day 5?: A Rude Awakening

Day 1: Baltimare

Author's Note

This chapter’s what I like to call a test run. It’s the longest single chapter I’ve written, and I want to see if people enjoy Long Hike’s scatterbrained antics or not. While not The Endless Cycle good, I am rather happy with this story, and I think my attempts at comedy at least are semi-funny. If people like it, I’ll release chapters 2 and 3 on the same day.

Long Hike is supposed to be this scatterbrained genius ditz, he’ll be able to tell you all of the different landforms in Equestria, but he also has a tendency to go off on topics that have nothing to do with the story.

This entire thing is supposed to be him writing in his journal, so every break is supposed to be written by him, hence the changing breaks and the lack of [ hr ].

It is supposed to be at least semi-funny, and I think I did a decent job at that, throwing in some of my favorite comedy tropes and of course, Long Hike’s personality.

Without further ado... I present The Great Equestrian Journey Chapter 1.

Day 1: Baltimare

I was going to be the first person to cross Equestria in a straight line; that’s what I decided one week ago when I decided to pack my bags. I would probably wear through several pairs of horseshoes— do we even wear horseshoes?— never mind. I would still walk across the country if it killed me.

Anyways I...

~\_

Apologies, there was a piece of dust on the corner of my journal. I have to keep this thing as clean as possible if I want to rely on using it to record my progress.

Where was I?

Oh, I didn’t even tell you my name. Apologies, again.

I’m Long Hike, a Geography major with a job as a college professor. I know there might be a point of no return, so I decided to take a hike the first day of summer. I fit the professor look, too. I have a pair of glasses and some grey hair, it’s my natural color, and a green coat.

Anyways, I was going to tell you about the known Equestrian world and about 200 other things I have written on a coffee-stained paper that’s currently sitting right next to my journal, but I forgot. It’s nothing new, either, I literally forgot what these words meant.

I have probably prattled on for too long already. My boss complains about the same thing. I should probably get this journey underway.

With my saddlebags stuffed with bits, camping equipment, and food, my cap sufficiently straightened— I have to keep the sun away somehow— I burst out of my house ready to take on another challenge.

~~~~~

The streets of Baltimare are wonderful things. I notice run-down apartments lining the streets that had gangs in every corner...

Maybe the streets aren’t so nice after all.

I still lived here, as much as I question my decision daily. I have to attempt to find the positives, I certainly learned that the first time I attempted to be pessimistic. I was going through that edgy phase that everypony and their mothers have seemed to go through, and I attempted to make a dark joke in front of my 2nd grade classroom... those were good times.

Anyways, back to Baltimare.

The sun is shining bright in the sky as I take a trip to my first stop. Ponies smile and wave as I walk by, some clearly looking like me like I was about to go on some insane adventure. To an extent I was, but this isn’t like that time I tried to cross the Celestial Sea in a sailboat. I hadn’t planned for wind cross-currents when I got in my sailboat and readied the sail. It worked at first, but then it turned into vicious ping pong with the wind as the paddles and me as the ball. I made it approximately 100 meters before I had to dock.

I was determined to see through to the end of this adventure through.

There are merchants hanging around, some selling you price-jacked Sapphire Shores tickets, I can’t get why people like her. She can sing, but all those synthesized sound effects with the overbearing compression and keyboard, I just can’t listen to it. Now, new wave, that’s truly the best music, that’s some amazing stuff right there. I’ve gotten ponies telling me that my criticisms of modern pop are in new wave, but I just don’t understand why somepony would say that. They are clearly very different.

Some merchants are Honest Joes, they’re trying to sell you reasonably-priced works of art; often that they made themselves. Summer was a popular season for merchants, you’d always see a big boom in profits every time summer started. The city is very high-density, and the streets are filled with ponies looking to purchase some goods. Those crowds are a nightmare to walk through, I tell you.

~~~~~

As I leave the slums, I start to see the better side of Baltimare. At least the better in comparison, we’re still rampant with crime over here, they just don’t happen to sell drugs in this corner of town.

If it isn’t already apparent, our mayor runs the town for us, Celestia wrote up Baltimare as a lost cause a long time ago. Something about how 90% of Equestrian crime is committed here... I’m sure it’s fine.

The houses vary in size and shape as the income fluctuates. It’s always easy to tell the lowbrow from the high class. Low class houses usually have a single floor, a small square footage, or the like. High class house tower above all else, sometimes up to three floors, they have fancy decorations and high square footage numbers. Often, you can see the high class ponies looking down from their top floor onto the low class houses. Those high class people are a bunch of jerks, I tell you.

I live somewhere else, as a middle class pony myself. What? Did you expect me to say a College Professor is a high-paying job? It’s not, it’s middle class at best, at least mine is. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that when I’m talking, I go off the rails more and more, causing students to sometimes learn a lot about something other than the day’s subject matter. I’m not sure if this makes me a bad teacher or an enlightening one, my students say nothing about the matter. Perhaps they just want something other than the written class?

~~~~~~

Anyways, I get out of the bordering houses and I finally walk into downtown Baltimare, and I’m blown away by its sheer immensity! The ponies are holding a convention today, it’s some convention about some kid’s show with a large periphery demographic, I don’t know. I just know we get a large influx of hoof traffic every time it happens. There seems to be even more ponies today, with some signs talking about the convention ending, I really don’t know. I just know that it’s a kid’s show, and that I’m not interested in it.

There’s various tall buildings, some made of glass, some of a more conventional structure. A conventional structure... I’ve just made a pun, excuse me while I cry.

~/~/~~~/

I’m done crying now, my hooves were already hurting, and I’d only walked towards downtown Baltimare, it had been 4 hours since I left. I check my watch to confirm that I’m right. I am.

I see various Baltimare landmarks. Things like the Living History Museum and The Engineer’s Club. The Engineer’s Club was a great place to sit back and ~~get drunk~~ relax. I frequently did that, once every weekend. It’s also the only time I ever drink wine during a week.

I see still more skyscrapers, and they’re getting larger. I enter a city square that’s absolutely packed with convention attendees. I take a seat on a bench to rest and think about lunch, it’s almost noon. I was really hungry. I open my pack and find out that I have food with me, not unlike I have camping equipment, and about ten journals. I tend to go on rants, who knew?

However, I want to avoid eating my Celestia-forbidden preserved dandelions for as long as I equinly can. Surveying my food options and making an attempt to examine the area around me. I see a fountain in the middle, spraying mist and water onto the cobblestone ground that’s located in an indentation in the middle of the park. The ground dips down and converges into the center, the fountain. Around it, ponies are simply milling about, having picnics, talking to their peers, or simply just enjoying the day. Anypony that has sense, that being all but me, aren’t attempting to walk across Equestria in a straight line.

Focusing on the prize, I look around to see if there are any food trucks that are in my path. It would be funny, trying to explain to the food vendor I will have just purchased greasy food that I probably shouldn’t be eating on this journey from, that I needed to crawl under their cart to continue walking. I can just imagine their faces when I tell them that.

Of course, the scenery is still a picturesque metropolitan scene. Skyscrapers tower over the park, dwarfing the park in their ominous shadows, but still creating an interesting contrast between park and city. Flags for the convention line the sides of the sidewalks, making an interesting sight compared to how usually dull the sidewalks are. After approximately ten minutes of writing all that, I get off the bench (It’s titled Death on Two Legs, Dedicated Too... I’m not sure who it’s dedicated to, and I swear I’ve heard that before) and make my way to the nearest food cart.

I realize that I am at the mercy of whatever the cart sells, if it sells deep-fried butter on a stick, that’s my lunch. Now, I’d consider myself a healthy pony, and I don’t want to have a heart attack due to tons of cholesterol. I have a friend who once had a heart attack after eating some deep-fried butter on a stick, he said he would not recommend having that for lunch. Maybe if I ended up there, I could order a diet coke with it to preserve the little sanity I have.

Thankfully, I end up at a generic carrot dog cart, and the food is nothing special, either. By the way, the face he gave me after I told him that I needed to crawl under his cart was as priceless as I imagined, he was so flabbergasted that I took advantage of his shock to do exactly that. With a full belly and a determined mind, I continued my way through Baltimare, still having 32 miles to go.

Now, one may think that I climbed under that food cart with little trouble, but that’s not true. My back had a long cut lengthwise from my neck to my tail, I had to toss my saddlebags over. Cuts are never fun, they simply hamper your progress and hurt entirely too much. I also had a a very messy stomach, it having touched dirt and all.

I’m now heading out of the park and into the walls of skyscrapers that lined it. I don’t have any climbing gear with me, and that would simply be a suggestion as climbing public buildings is highly illegal. I once read a news article about this pony who decided that climbing the tallest building in Baltimare was a great idea. Now, I wasn’t planning on climbing a building, but his story was interesting enough to me that I decided to read it. Spoiler alert: it ends with a sentence, the bad type of sentence. That’s when I decided to not climb buildings ever in my life.

I was hoping that I didn’t run into a skyscraper, then, a skyscraper just decides to get in my way. A skyscraper stands before me, one of modern construction, made of tempered glass and steel. It almost looks like a hotel, and considering the fact that it says ‘Mareiott’ on the building might give a clue that it is. I once stayed at a Mareiott hotel, the name sucks, but it’s rather nice in there, it has some nice coffee and a respectable free breakfast.

Unfortunately, my hotel is still six hours ahead of me.

I have to navigate my way around the hotel and find about where my normal line would be. I can’t go left, as the road came from a bend and was currently right to the left of me, I’m not about to walk lengthwise along a road, even though I wasn’t in the dead center of the hotel and was instead leaning closer to the left edge. So, I head right and converge into my original line. I happen to line up right next to a crosswalk. While I’m trying to remain an upstanding citizen, sometimes you’ve got to jaywalk. Jaywalking was a crime here, and I’ve heard people saying that it gets you a good few months of jail time. Why the mayor made such a severe punishment for such a minor crime, I will never know.

Paranoid, I run over the road and promptly run straight into a lamppost because I’m looking around for police cars. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I hope that whatever injuries I sustained don’t catch up to me, I’m already in hot water with the long cut on my back.

Speaking of hot water, I could kill for a coffee right now. Coffee is my favorite drink and I can barely function without it. I don’t think I properly surveyed the risks that not having my coffee could have on this journey, I might be less alert to lampposts in my way, as I’ve done interstellar at that so far, I might forget to fill in the maps, which was my main goal here, and I might just fall asleep, as horses can sleep standing up. I was already dreading losing caffeine, and I certainly couldn’t just get an Kurig, some coffee beans, and hot water. Thinking about all these things, I walk through an automatic door that I could hear moving, and enter straight into a supermarket. Of course, I navigated around the lamppost that hampered my progress previously.

I look up and notice that I have just walked into a Walmart, there is no back door, but there is a garden area.

I was about to something horrible in the next few minutes.

I notice that the garden area is straight ahead. I look around and notice nopony actually caring what I do. There are shops lining the left side of the store, but other than that, the only things that require any note are the checkout lanes which appear to be taking entirely to long to get over with. I realize that the longer I stand and look, the more suspicious I appear. I walk across the clay tile floor to get to where I’m going.

I travel through the handy automatic doors and step into the Garden Center. Now, I don’t care too much for tending gardens. I’ve never actually been in a Garden Center in a Walmart, Meijer, or any other store. I just didn’t care for it. So, I’m certainly surprised when I find out that I really want to buy a flower! There are flowers of every shade, every breed, and every necessary care level. I check out some violets and snapdragons and then realize that I had to get out somehow. Unfortunately, beyond all the pots of petunias that take up the middle— I can crawl under those— these isn’t a door, or a cinderblock wall or anything. I had just basically stepped into a cage.

I can’t imagine escaping a cage to be pleasant. I mean, you’re surrounded by bars and the only way out is to thrash around enough to notify someone to get you out. However, if you’re in jail, like I was likely going to be if any cops saw me, you can’t get out.

There is a way to escape this, however. I could climb over the plastic cage walls, jump off the top of them, and run into the street just beyond. I quickly look around and check the sun and my watch, I had several miles to go, and I’ve already wasted enough time twiddling my hooves. I take a running leap onto the bars. and I hear an employee telling my ear off. I mean, I can’t exactly blame her. That being said, I turn in her direction.

I see a cute teenaged mare, she’s grey and has a blue mane, styled in the way you’d expect every teenaged mare who works at Walmart would style their mane, she doesn’t give a crap about how good it looks. It’s messy, it’s unbrushed, and it’s fairly long. She’s wearing the Walmart employee uniform so I can’t tell what her cutie mark looks like, or if she has one at all. I carefully walk over to the employee, ducking under those Celestia-forsaken petunias again, I mean, they are so ugly!

She looks at me quizzically, I mean, I also don’t blame her for this. If I was a teenager (I wish), and a middle-aged stallion came at me after just attempting to climb out of a Walmart Garden Center, I would back away slowly. To all her credit, she actually stayed behind the cash register!

Anyways, I walk up to the teenaged mare. She looks at me, and I look at her, she looks at me, and I look...

You know what, screw it.

I simply state,”Hello, I’m trying to cross Equestria in a straight line.”

Wait, I never told you about my voice! Well, it’s rather deep and... oh, she’s looking at me again.

“That’s a likely story,” the mare says, as skeptically as a teenaged mare can sound.

At this point, the ponies in the store are looking at us strangely. They are all either backing away from her or me. Oh wait, I just noticed her uniform has a dorky nametag that notes,”Hello! My name is Jasmine!”

I start shaking my head at this, they didn’t even put two spaces after their exclamation point!

So, I focus on Jasmine’s face again, her eyes are a sort of scary lavender, and I don’t want to look into those. However, I’m forced to.

“Well, I have a journal right here,” I relay to Jasmine,”you can read it if you like. The information is all in there.”

Jasmine opens the journal and starts to read painfully slow, there’s only a few paragraphs in there at the time, it shouldn’t take that long. In fact, I write most of my passages after the fact, in present tense, as I’m doing with this Jasmine mare. I’m actually in a hotel right now, and please don’t question it, I’ll write in present tense if I want to.

After what feels like an eternity and a half (I should contact Mareiam-Webster to make that an official time marking). Jasmine finishes reading. She nods and I take a run to the edge. Wait, I have to duck under those silly petunias first. I leap onto the plastic and wave Jasmine good bye. She waves back and I take a look at all the ponies who are trying to comprehend this bespectacled middle-aged stallion climbing out of a Garden Center. I climb out and reach the top... before I promptly fall down.

The road stretches out before me horizontally. Baltimare has a nice grid road design, so I knew exactly where I need to go to go straight.

I lift my bruised head up, already feeling the pain of that lamppost. I look around and notice a little something right beside the garden center. It’s a fire exit.

Oh Celestia, why do you do this to me?

~~~~~~~~~

The rest of Baltimare is rather similar, no other Walmarts come into my sights, and it’s a rather boring trip. I do stop by a Sunbucks to get a coffee, but that’s unimportant. Some buildings I have to walk around, other ones I just take the back door, most buildings are just the exact same.

Finally, I reach my hotel. It was past my target point of 8:00 PM, maybe an hour past...

Ok, I admit it, I may have gotten distracted by a newspaper in the Sunbucks and may have wasted an hour reading the newspaper. Funny thing is, I’d already read it that morning. I literally couldn’t remember that I read a news article on some new foundation in Baltimare headed by our mayor. I can’t remember what. See, it’s been 3 hours and I’ve already forgotten what I read in the Sunbucks. When you remember that ponies nowadays have the memory of a goldfish, it isn’t a surprise that newspaper readership is declining. Heck, maybe someday we might just be able to access the newspaper wherever we want so that we’ll never forget an article.

Anyways, I walk into the hotel, it’s a nice Mareiott Hotel with a pool I wouldn’t use, much to my ire. The hotel pools were always the best part of hotels, and the free breakfast, you can’t forget the free breakfast. I never travel without booking a hotel that has at least one of those things, and I don’t know how ponies can bear life without them!

Wait, the receptionist is looking at me funny... I’ll be right back.

————————————~\

I’m in my hotel room right now, writing by dim candlelight because I don’t want to turn on my lamp. I’ve got my cap and glasses set to the side, and am ready to sleep. My hooves are seriously hurting more than my bruised head, walking 24 miles a day does this to a stallion. I can’t get comfortable on my back because there’s a freaking back-length cut on there, and I’m surprised it’s not bleeding. About now, I’m envying unicorns and their fancy writing techniques they don’t need to try to do.

About the receptionist, she knew me. She was worried about me doing something crazy again and tried to dissuade me from doing anything she didn’t like. She was worried about me doing another Celestial Sea fiasco, I had to reassure her that no, I was only walking across Equestria in a straight line to improve our knowledge on it. She wasn’t reassured, but at least she let me stay at this hotel. That’s good, because I wasn’t going to awkwardly camp outside.

Anyways, this concludes day one of my journey. I’m signing out because I really just want to crash onto this comfortable King-Size bed right now.

Signing out, Long Hike.

Day 2: Leaving Baltimare

Day 2

~~~~~~~~~

What is the racket going on right now? I feel like my ears are ringing...

Anyways, Long Hike again, here with another day of my Journey Across Equestria. But first, I've got to get out of bed.

I slam my hoof down on my alarm clock, aware that I probably can’t get 5 more minutes.

I never understood the use of the Snooze Button on an alarm clock. 5 minutes is such a ridiculously infinitesimal amount of time, one cannot simply get a reasonable amount of sleep in 5 minutes. I am not exempt from this rule, and strangely, I’m rather feeling the call of the Snooze Button today.

My entire head feels like it was bashed against a rock and shifted around again. I suppose that is what happened, but I mean LAMPPOST WHAT THE HECK! I had never had such a headache in my life. My back still hurt a little, but nothing compared to my head.

I shift my hoof around for a little bit, and find my glasses. Putting them on, I grab my saddlebags to start heading out the door. Apparently, I was so tired that I slept with my watch on, which is very typical of me. Using this opportunity to check the time, I cleverly deduce, somewhat, that it is 7:00 AM, right on schedule. I start to head down the hotel steps to the lobby.

I do have to say this, looking down, I have to admit, hotel carpet is ugly. It’s like that weird wallpaper your mom had in the 80’s that looked completely out of place compared to everything else. In hotels, the carpet at least blended in, but I’m not going to see any celebrities trotting on down this red carpet.

I start prancing down the stairs, as fast as my head can allow, at least. I quickly head down and get some breakfast. I get a cup of coffee, which as all ponies know, is a necessity, and some haybacon. Haybacon is really good, it almost tastes odd in a way, like they used seasoning to make it taste like it came from a pig. Well, I’ve never heard ponies complain, so they must be doing something right.

I finish my food, only for some entitled colt, red with green mane. Point at me and say,”Did your breakfast come with the Senior Discount?”

I don’t respond, having to get going soon, but that does make me so mad! I’ll have you know that I am strictly 47 years old, I’m not old enough to get the Senior Discount! The greyscale’s natural!

Colts these days.

Anyways, I make my way to front lobby, and dear Celestia, the receptionist is looking at me odd again.

————————\

She was inquiring my journey again. I reassured her that this wasn’t a stupid idea, I chose my line so that I’d climb as few mountains as possible. Anyways, I’m outside the Mareiott, and looking onto the open plains.

They are rather open, but I’d say that these have something to look at. I see farmers growing their grass and other vegetables off in the distance. I’m suddenly realizing that I probably shouldn’t of taken this trip in the summer. However, a geography professor can’t really get any other time off, so I might as well make use of it.

Examining my surroundings, I notice that this land seems ripe for planting. Farms are everywhere, as such is the nature pf ponies. It’s a wonderful summer day, though very hot. I’m no meteorologist, but I’d like to say that the skies are clear today. This has the side effect of completely ruining my eyesight when I look up, as my glasses happen to be to correct nearsightedness.

Ouch.

Don’t look directly at the sun.

Correcting my vision by blinking several times in succession, I reach down to adjust my hat, which isn’t on my head. I must've left it in the hotel room, and now I am forced to live with a lack of head protection.

I guess my scatterbrained tendencies would have caught up with me. In my defense, I had a splitting headache, and that is a very bad defense. The headache shouldn’t have prevented me from just looking back and getting my hat.

Oh well, it’s a little too late for that. Looking back at Baltimare, it’s slowly receding in the distance, even though I haven’t even walked a mile yet. This is going to be fun. But on the subject of headaches, I’m starting to feel a bit woozy...

~~~~~~\____

So, who knew vomiting was a side effect of getting a concussion? I didn’t! I probably should’ve paid more attention in Health class. Though honestly, I didn’t have the slightest care of getting a health degree, I paid attention in my Social Studies classes instead. Social Studies is interesting, and it’s always nice learning about early Equestrian figures like Trail Blazer and Nightmare Moon. Speaking of which, I wonder how Luna’s doing today. After the events of the Elements described in our books, she seems like a nice mare. The elements seem like they happened a long time ago, however, but maybe Luna’s still around. Maybe I should save up and go to Canterlot someday.

Where was I?

Oh yes, I’m noticing a farm steadily approaching in the distance, it’s farming wheat. I mean, what else would it be farming? We eat so much hay in Equestria that we could probably make an entire city of hay bales! Come to think of it, how long would that city actually last? Ponies would just keep eating the buildings. Also, where would you put it? There isn’t exactly a lot of staying power in hay bales?

Questions for minds better than I, I suppose.

The field is coming up, and I causally look ahead to see how long this description would last. There’s rows upon rows of wheat fields, with several ponies tending to them. Such as it is in a world without anything that could quickly plant and harvest seeds. That also seems like such an absurd idea! Like, how would you get the seeds? How would the be planted? How would you even make such a device? I hope to Celestia that nopony in a different place has tried doing that before.

Strange, wheat isn’t generally grown in summer, must be some pegasi doing something strange.

I take a cautious step into the wheat fields and am assaulted by things in my face. I can’t even see ten feet ahead of me! I’m going to also have to keep a keen eye for any farmers than I happen to be nearly on top of. I see why we use scythes to cut the crops before we get to them. If we used scythes when we’re in the crops, we’d just cut ourselves. By complete accident, hopefully.

After losing a great portion of my breakfast, I am now surrounded by food. My stomach really wants to eat this food. I am forced to hold myself back so I don’t eat all the wheat in sight.

Looking at the ground for as long as possible, I walk forward. Then, the question of what happens when I run into a farmer arises again. How would they react if I ran into them?

I need not question any further, because I literally run into a pony. Yes, literally, I wouldn’t misuse a word so meaningful, it drives me insane when people do! Literally means,”exactly”, not “emphasis on something figurative”.

Anyways, I hit my head on this farmer’s side. I swear, that concussion’s never going to clear up. However, this was nowhere near the scope of my last one.

“Hello,” I say in my best professor voice.

“Hello, to you, too. Could ya get your head up?” this farmer states, much to my surprise.

“Wait, so you aren’t going to scold me for being in your fields?” I ask, quizzically.

“Oh, Ah am, I just wanna look ya in the eyes while Ah do so,” he clarifies.

“Good, because I was really wondering what happened,” I look up.

This pony’s about twice the size of me, he’s just about the toughest cowboy with an Apple accent that I’ve seen. He has a black cowboy hat, but no hair that’s noticeable. An earth pony, he has a pitchfork cutie mark, and his coat color matches the sky. By the way, the sky is still incredibly blue, never seen a day like it. It’s beautiful, I knew I came onto this journey for a reason. I think I came on it because I really like nature, and expected some wonderful views, which I certainly have gotten already.

Anyways, the pony turns around so that his side isn’t facing me so that I can look into his amber eyes, which is giving me irrational chills. He clearly doesn’t want anypony messing around. He also has a black goatee, which is strange with his bald head. He has this look about him that just seems unnaturally angry, and it doesn’t reassure me in the slightest.

“So, now Ah’m gonna give ya some inquiry,” he says in his deep, apple accented voice.

“Yes, I understand that.” I say in a small voice,”Could you hurry up so that I don’t feel so intimidated?”

“As ya wish.” He replies, relaxing a little,”First question, who are ya, and what are ya doing here?”

“I’m Long Hike, a geography professor from Baltimare, I’m trying to cross Equestria in a straight line.”

He squints his eyes.”That is the strangest cover story Ah’ve heard, Ah request proof, if ya have any.”

I hand him my journal, man has that thing come in handy more than once. I wonder would would happen if I did all my writing exclusively after the day. Who would buy it? I’d have to try that sometime. I also notice a little dirt on the journal, and it was making my right eye twitch unnecessarily.

That farmer was surely taking his sweet time reading my journal. This was going to be a recurring theme, wasn’t it?

He finishes, and then looks at me and back tp the journal a few times. “Ah see, but aren’t ya a might old ta be traveling like this?”

My face starts heating up.”I’ll have you know that the greyscale is natural!” I respond.

The pony laughs,”Ah’m sure it is. Ah’m Blue Sky by the way.”

“Ok, Mr. Blue Sky, I’m just going to continue on my way,” I respond, referencing a song I don’t care too much about. It sucks that MLO is so catchy, they don’t resemble New Wave in the slightest, yet their songs are so catchy. I can get them stuck in my head for hours on end, and Mr. Blue Sky was going to follow suit.

Blue Sky nods, and I start to walk through the wheat again.

~~~~~~

Long story short, I had to mentally torture myself to make it through all the food, then eat some grass after I finished the trek. I’d just finished eating the grass, and my head was starting to ring again. I walk on into an empty field where I can sit back and relax.

I do so, and check my watch. I sure hope my watch didn’t run out of batteries, but I have some spare batteries in case of battery-related emergencies. My watch reads that it is noon, so I could keep on going. My plan was to take a rest near the train tracks that were about thirty miles away. I think, because I can’t exactly think straight when my mind is basically static.

So I relax in the rolling green pastures for a while just watching the world turn, and then find out that I have wasted twenty minutes.

Yeah, nature allured me again, I sigh, wondering how I’ll ever get through the mission in a timely manner.

Continuing onward, I find a small patch of woodland just ahead, as I was clipping the edge of a forest. It isn’t the Everfree, thankfully, and I’d routed as to avoid such things.

The trees were flourishing with leaves, having just grown leaves after Spring. As I entered, twigs start snapping under my hooves, and giving me a ringing in my ears, because concussions aren’t very nice. The forest seems to be a medium sort of wooded, and it’s a mixed forest, birch and oak trees filling it. The soil is very mulchy, and almost seems like it wants to go out of its way to make walking as inconvenient as possible.

I’m not on any path, and I have to skirt around various trees and shrubbery, all while keeping as straight as possible. I’m nowhere as lumber as I used to be. I used to love climbing trees and interacting with nature, I stopped, and started looking at maps and terrain instead. I can’t climb trees anymore, however, and I don’t think my head is in any state to try.

There are no animals lurking around, which I think is incredibly strange. I’m no biologist, but I think animals should live in mixed forests. Unless...

My mind trembles at the thought, gives me a headache, and I quickly remember what I was worried about, that’s a first. I cannot say I’ve ever hit all parts of the scatterbrain spectrum. Anyways, what if there was some predator I wasn’t aware of and it’s stalking me right now?

I put my hoof on my mane, looking for a hat, that’s when I remember that I forgot it. I put my hoof down awkwardly, and start to pick up the pace a little. This stretch of forest isn’t very long, and I should be able to reach the other side quickly.

Making sure to avoid hitting any other trees, I burst out of the forest, glasses askew. I quickly correct them, tousle my mane a bit to get any spare leaves and such out, and continue on like nothing happened.

Ahead of me, I see what can only be described as the flattest plain I’ve ever seen. There weren’t any farms, as the fact that there was a mountain awfully close made this an unsuitable place for most farming. I consult my map to make sure that I’m still on course, and confirm, in fact, that my blind stampede away from a predator who may not have existed did not offset my line. I also notice a family of bunnies daintily eating some flowers right outside the forest, which explains why there weren’t any animals there.

Well, I nearly gave myself a heart attack for nothing, joy.

The geography of Equestria is all out of whack, and I just couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t going to climb the two incredibly tall, random mountains, but I would rather walk past them. They were far away from me anyways.

Walking through the rather uneventful field, I realize that I never ate. Even after vomiting, I never did a thing.

Taking out my preserved dandelions, I look at them like they just insulted my mother. I hate preserved dandelions, I don’t think anyone else ate them either, as they were one of those items that’s just there in the grocery store, the items lining the aisles that nobody really ever buys. Unfortunately, I had to buy them for this journey, and they were going to be my main food source for my trip.

Nibbling one to avoid the assault on my taste buds, I realized that I was so hungry that I didn’t care, and I ate the entire dandelion in record time.

Wait, I never said what they tasted like, let me back up a bit.

Anyways, preserved dandelions have this acidic taste. Sure, dandelions are fine, but they aren’t drenched in preservatives. Preserved dandelions taste like plastic. The taste is akin to eating a plastic bag. I hate it.

I eat a couple more and realize that my stomach didn’t like the quantity of preserved dandelions I ate.

—
Long Hike from 5 hours into the future here, have I said that word enough? I think I’ve said it one too many times, I’d rather not even think about preserved dandelions, not that I can effectively anyways. Spoiler alert: the headaches didn’t go away. I would highly recommend against getting concussions.
—

Anyways, I start a steady trot towards the mountains looming in the distance, the time was 1:30 PM, and those mountains were about 10 miles away.

Nothing is happening it is boring here.

~~~~~~~~

So, three hours later, I finally reach the base of the mountains and realize that I wasn't going to make my quota of distance today. Besides, checking my map, there was a train track ahead, and I’d rather sleep farther away from it than closer. But I could go on for a little longer, if only it wasn’t so mind-achingly boring here!

~~~~~~~~

Another hour passes, and I’m just another few miles farther. It is; however, 5:30 PM, and I want to start sleeping before I regret trotting any farther. I get out my camping equipment to stay the night at the base of this mountain, then I realize that I’ve never gone camping before. I facehoof at my idiocy, and try to simply get by.

The tent has no instructions. This worries me.

I have seen pictures of set up tents before, and I think I could grasp the concept.

So, I take the posts connected to the tent and pound them into the ground with a little mallet I found. I make sure to do it as quietly as possible.

I then take the strings of the tent and tie a serviceable knot around the posts, and I think this is how they go.

Heading inside, I rest on the cold hard ground and try to write down what my scrambled mind can remember in this state. After I write all that, I attempt to go to sleep. If my concussion was this bad already, I dreaded how much worse it would get.

~~~~~~~~

Help everypony, I can’t fall asleep. I’m still going to attempt to, but it’s been an hour.

Let’s hope tomorrow is better.

-Long Hike

Author's Note

I got a concussion once, I do not recommend it.

Anyways, this chapter’s alright, it might be because I took too long to update, again. By the way, this concussion is really going to spiral out of control

On that happy note, let’s talk influences.

This was (of course), inspired by GeoWizard’s Journey Across Whales, it was also meant to mainly be inspired by Austereoh, but then I read Trail Blazer, and it morphed into a comedy (kind of).

Please leave constructive criticism if you have any, I’m going to try to implement it into this story.

Day 3: The Train Tracks

What a wonderful feeling, being tired is. It’s even worse when you have a pounding headache, dizziness, and couldn’t sleep at all yesterday.

Anyways, concussions, not very fun, but I think I’ve described that plenty already.

I’m at the foot of the mountain, which I remember attempting to sleep near last night, and I’m trying to get my jet-lagged mind to boot up and take down the tent.

After staring into space for a few minutes, my brain seemed to have hit its on switch.

I take down the tent posthaste and start on my continuing journey.

Hold on, I’ve never actually stated what I’m trying to do right? I can’t quite recall everything I wrote that first day, so I’m going to reiterate.

I’ve always found it funny how on most editions of the Equestrian map, there’s an isthmus to the west that isn’t filled in yet. I wonder if when the maps were being copied, they saw a mountain range and left. That’s more than likely.

Anyways, I saw this isthmus and wondered what was beyond that mountain range. I was going to pick up some climbing equipment in Ponyville, which has grown incredibly large since the Elements. I keep forgetting just how long ago they were. Can’t be more than a couple decades, right?

I mean, what if there was a desert? What if in the desert there was an inn run by a strange creature?

Nah, that’s crazy talk.

Anyways, the scene is just as boring as it was coming up to the mountains, there still isn’t a lot of farming around, and I’m almost to the end of the two mountains.

So bored.

Finally, I reach the end of the mountains, and there’s more fields growing crops in the distance, or rather there’s a field directly in front of me. I don’t see any farmer though, so I trudge through the fields, all crises averted. The field is actually rather short, compared to other fields I’ve walked through, only going on for a mile. The wheat is also tickling me in my temples, giving me another massive headache.

However, the headache ends as fast as it started, and I notice more empty grasslands, no doubt for more planting later, as the ground was good enough for it. I wouldn’t have any qualms with this, except for the fact that after these few miles of fields, though I have to squint to make it out, is a horizontal train track right in my path.

I have to walk across an active train track.

Admittedly, I drew my line on my copy of the Equestrian Map, so I must’ve thought that walking across a horizontal train track was good for my cause. However, either due to my concussion or my normal scatterbrained self, I forgot.

In addition, I feel the aura of tiredness caused by concussion-induced insomnia nagging at the back of my mind.

I could kill for a cup of coffee right now.

I notice another mountain range on the right of me, though it is rather far away. It shouldn’t hamper growing areas in this vicinity. Otherwise, it’s fertile green fields as far as the eye can see.

Of course, nothing’s growing on them.

Trudging ahead to the train tracks, I take an unsteady step onto them. Rocks dig into my hooves, reminding me how much they hurt. I stumble with every bar I hit with my hoof.

In short, it’s the definition of Hell. Not only that, but I’m keeping a careful ear out for any trains that might pop up behind me.

I slowly blink, and hear something coming up behind me from a distance away. That rattling of the tracks confirms my suspicions, and I leap out of the way.

A train barrels past me, and I push my glasses back onto my face. Trains sure have gotten fast.

I examine the amount of cars the train has. As soon as it’s over, I shakily step out onto the track.

~-~—~\

\
Given how idiotic a pony would have to be to put farms on the side of the train tracks, the rest of the day is more of the same. I groggily stumble forward and leap out of the way when I feel a tremor in the tracks.

I never knew how long these tracks were, they went on for a good 25 miles. Thus, there’s literally nothing of note.

I step as far away from the train tracks as possible and settle into my tent.

Given that I probably won’t go to sleep anytime soon, I think about today.

Very boring day, nothing much to say. I see a mountain range ahead on my map though, so I think I might get some action tomorrow.

My hooves hurt with the pain of a thousand tiny little needles, and my head is in so much pain. That concussion was serious, I don’t even feel like myself anymore. I haven’t had a good ranting all day, I feel so, wrong.

Until tomorrow...

-Long Hike?

Author's Note

Oh wait, this is supposed to be funny... my mistake.

However, record time for updating!

Oh yeah, this was also supposed to be good, whoops.

Yes, self-doubt is a symptom of concussions, so is insomnia, headaches, vomiting, and tinnitus. I looked this up to see whether I should go in a more dramatic direction or simply play up the concussion for laughs, I took the former option, unfortunately.

Day 4: A Mountain Climb

I can’t believe it, I actually got 2 hours of sleep last night!

Anyways, Long Hike here, writing another day in my Great Equestrian Journey. Wait, I just thought of the name of my journal! If I don’t make it back before summer’s over, I might be able to title this journal something catchy, and sell it so that I won’t be teaching again. Come to think of it, I never booked a substitute professor, or told the university that I might not be coming back. I should’ve done that.

I’m in a slightly better mood today, my head still hurts, my vision’s blurry occasionally, wait...

It turns out my glasses weren’t on properly. That explains the blurriness, also, there’s probably terrible bags under my eyes that are interfering with my wonderful forest green coat. I’m so tired... I heard a song like that once. By some little band called The Beatles? I think the last of those guys died out a few years ago, actually.

Oh well, now that my preliminary rant is over, it’s time for me to examine the map. I take the map out of my backpack and examine the next challenge. It appears to be a mountain range that looms in the distance, which Ponyville is beyond. Looking up, I can see that there is, in fact, a mountain range right ahead of me. It also looks like the pegasai planned for rain today, given the dark clouds and high cloud concentration.

Just climbing a mountain range when it’s probably going to rain today. What could possibly go wrong?

—
Long Hike from the future here, a lot can go wrong, never tempt fate in such a careless way. Otherwise... well, I’ll let you read for yourself.
—

Staring at the mountain range for a while is starting to make me a little dizzy. I swing my head down to the ground, giving myself a mini-headache and almost essentially headbanging my glasses off my face. I can only imagine going to an optometrist and stating that the reason my glasses are broken is because I listened to Metal music. You see, this is why I stick with New Wave.

Anyways, I remember the possible forecast, and really wish I remembered my hat in that Baltimare hotel. Whatever, the past is in the past.

So anyways, I traveled across the tracks yesterday, I think...

~~~~~~~~

Yes, had to check my journal real quick. I did cross the train tracks, I actually didn’t write too much yesterday, must’ve been in that strange delirious state that I’m starting to recover from. I blink slowly and then shake my head to wake me up. I can’t dally around anymore, to the mountains I go.

~~~~~~~

Well, I had to take down the tent first. I start walking again and examine my surroundings. A small desert is to my left, and the train track curves into a different mountain on my right, but straight ahead looms the mountains. Just a mile ahead, actually. I’ll see you there.

~~~~~~~

Sorry for the absurd amount of breaks today, I’m just feeling in a spotty mood. I’m sorry, that joke was terrible. Anyways, I stand at the mountains and slowly breathe in. Ponyville wouldn’t be right on the other side of the mountains if they weren’t unscalable, right? Well, I survey around to see if there’s a way up. There appears to be little crevices in the rock, not what I’m looking for, but it’ll do.

I put my hoof in one of the crevices, lose my balance and fall backwards almost immediately. I may not be old, but I’m still old enough that I don’t want to deal with this stuff. It also does not help my insane pounding headaches. To top it all off, I hear some thunder from right behind me.

I mean, Thunder’s a good song, but not a good thing to hear when trying to scale a freaking mountain. I squint to try and pick out the best way up.

Pitting my hoof in the first crevice, I secure my backpack on my back and start to climb up. Keeping my balance this time, I find another crevice...

Only for a burst of thunder to knock me down again. This was not going to be any easy task. Powering through with resolve, I hook my hooves in the crevices and start climbing up as fast as I can.

I look up and see the mountain towering over me. I probably should’ve taken a look to see how tall it was.

Preserving my stamina, I start to slow down. I start to feel drops of rain trickling under my backpack and making me quite uncomfortable. I shake my body to pull myself out from the discomfort that puts me in. I almost lose my balance in the process, but I still feel marginally more comfortable.

Putting my hoof carefully in a another crevice, I wonder why I didn’t bring climbing equipment. I probably underestimated the height of the mountain, which somepony in my profession shouldn’t even do. I’m a Geology Professor for goodness sakes!

The rain is slowly coming down faster. Dear Celestia, I hate how fast pegasus rain happens. Like, they’ll give you little hints of the forecast, the good news is that it’s usually consistent, and then they’ll drop it on you without hardly any chance for preparation!

The rain is really coming down now, and unfortunately, I’m looking up. Luckily, I have two things pf glass in front of my eyes known as glasses that prevent water from pouring into my eyes. Unfortunately, they are still transparent (or translucent, because I have nothing to clean them with), and they are fogging up. They can only protect my eyes for so long.

I’m blind as a bat without glasses. They actually help me see, my eyesight just gets very blurry without them on.

I’ve been standing still for a while, so I’m about ready to fall asleep. I mean, we can sleep standing up. But I shake myself out of it, and shake myself dry in the process, saying that I can take a nap when I reach the top.

There is no fleeing from this uncomfortable rain. It’s getting under my backpack and my skin. I really hate Pegasi weather.

I’m still climbing, but I think I’ve found a rhythm of finding crevices and putting my hoof them. The only way to stay awake is to keep moving and forget about the rain. In case you haven’t noticed, that isn’t very easy to do.

I keep inquiring myself on why I didn’t bring climbing gear. I should’ve looked at the map harder. Well, when I make it to Ponyville, I’m definitely getting climbing gear. I don’t know if the Undiscovered West is going to have mountain ranges. It could be all mountain ranges for all I know.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s 1 PM, I think. Climbing isn’t exactly very interesting. There isn’t anything I can tell you that hasn’t already been stated. The climbing is tough, my hooves are getting chipped, and the rain is getting progressively more irritating with every hour.

Ikm also hungry, but my backpack is on my back, and I can’t reach it without losing my balance and breaking my neck.

The good news is that I’m almost to the top, I’ve just got a couple more crevices to go. However, my minor dizziness is only getting progressively worse with the harrowing lack of oxygen up here. It’s getting harder to see, and while this mountain is tall, it doesn’t exceed the clouds, the rain is still very much present.

Putting my hoof into that second-to-last crevice, I keep telling myself that I’ll have the best sleep of my life when I reach the top.

I put my hoof into the last crevice, and pull myself up!

I just feel like I scaled Mt. Everhoof. I don’t care where my sleeping bag and tent are, I just want to fall asleep. Thankfully the rain seems to be letting up, so let me just update my journal.

~~~~~~~~

The sun has finally come out, and I’m about ready to sleep. I realize I should probably get to where there’s more oxygen, but I don’t really care. I stumble to a place where I can rets my head. I can reach Ponyville tomorrow.

-Long Hike

—
Long Hike from the future here, I did get to Ponyville the next day, not the way I expected. I slept on some loose soil, and well, you’ll see what happens next.
—

Author's Note

I do feel like this story has lost some of its charm from the first couple chapters, and this did take a while, but I do think it’s also about to get good again.

Sorry for not making this much of a comedy in the last couple of chapters, nor as developed as some of my other stories, but adventure isn’t all comedy. I apologize, there will be more comedy in the future.

Day 5?: A Rude Awakening

Long Hike here, back with another day on my Great Equestrian Journey. I have to tell you, I feel amazing! My head doesn’t hurt, my back feels less uncomfortable. I just can’t wait to wake up and get started on my journey!

Opening up my eyes, I notice something’s immediately off. I was expecting to wake up surrounded by blue sky, the only thing I liked about pegasus weather was that they never planned two days of rain in a row. This is probably the one thing that gives Pegasi a benefit over us Earth Ponies.

Earth Ponies get such a bad rep. We don’t get magic, we don’t get to fly and work weather, we aren’t Alicorns. I think Earth Ponies are completely fine! We could buck your teeth out if we so wished. Of course, we don’t because that would result in a class action lawsuit. Of course, not that I would know anything about it...

Anyways, instead of getting blue sky. I got steady beeping in a florescent room hooked up to some machine, lying down on some bed. With my Celestia-forsaken preserved dandelions on my bedside.

I blink just to make sure my concussion isn’t messing with my head again. Indeed, I am in a hospital.

Why? How? I don’t know, I’m fairly certain I don’t sleepwalk. I might be able to climb up a mountain, but I shouldn’t be able to climb down it in one night. It had been one night, right?

I’m remarkably more confused than usual, until some pretty dark blue mare in a lab coat walks in. She carries a clipboard in her magic, and looks me over.

“Ah, Long Hike, it seems that you are awake. We have been awaiting any response from you for a while now,” she says.

This doesn’t answer any of my questions. Where am I? How’d I get here? Why have I been hooked up to a machine? Where’s my saddlebags? Why is this nurse not using a single contraction?

Come to think of it, I’ve never been severely injured before. I have been to a hospital, however. It was a long time ago, I might’ve been a teenager. I accidentally tripped on a skateboard and fell down. I got a major cut on my knee. I’ve never really liked hospitals anyways.

So, I have to start my questions over, the nurse seems to have answers for each. I won’t bore you with her oddly meticulous way of talking. But essentially, I’m at the Ponyville general hospital, I fell down the mountain and miraculously survived, Celestia must’ve been doing overtime that day, I fell into a coma and have been asleep for a time I deliberately blocked out of my mind.

Seriously, I don’t want this to be too long, because I might not make it back to the university. I could’ve been knocked out and used all that time to discover the Undiscovered West, that’s the reason I set out on this in the first place. I really hated not getting things done. Unfortunately, I tend to not get things done because I have a tendency to go off-topic and rant about whatever bothers me. Haven’t got the chance to do that much, I’ve kind of already told you about my pet peeves.

Anyways, back to the questions. So, my saddlebags were being kept in storage, upon my inquiry, they handed the, to me. Thankfully, they kept my journal intact. However, they said that the third and fourth chapters were not as good as the first two. I guess I apologize for having a concussion? It’s not like I can think straight when I’m in a state of dizziness and constant head pain. They also said my handwriting was impossible to read.

What gleaming praise.

So, upon my asking about contractions. She quickly reverted to normal pony speak, explained her name was Deep Jade, and explained a long and storied campaign in one of those ‘In Chaos’ games, where Discord destroys the world and you have to rebuild it.

Honestly, I didn’t really pay attention, I’m still comprehending my situation, but good for her, I guess? I swear, this all sounds uncannily familiar. That aside, I had apparently suffered ‘multiple lacerations, fractured legs, a heavy concussion, and a cut on my back that had recently re-opened and almost got infected with all the rocks that had wormed their way in there’. Also, I suffered broken glasses. They managed to figure out my prescription and get me new ones.

“Seriously,” Deep Jade finished,”you really shouldn’t have tried climbing a mountain at your age.”

As I’m about to argue her statement, I hear a voice cry out,”Jade, are you still back there? I thought you would’ve been done by now!”

Deep Jade looks flustered for a moment and then quickly runs out of the room to the sound of the unknown voice.

“I’ll have you know that the greyscale’s natural!” I shout back at her.

~~~~~~~~

I spent the rest of the day waiting for some nurse to come help me. I was bored, they didn’t have any good geography books.

Finally, Deep Jade walks back in.

“Sorry,” she apologizes,”I get carried away sometimes. Anyways you should be good to go in a few days. Your injuries mostly healed during the comatose state, but you still need to gain your bearings to go again,” she waves goodbye.

Well, that was a bust. That means I’m going to have to stay here for three whole days. Then, I can finally head out on my way.

At least I can use this time to figure out what to do. But hold up, I see a calendar on the wall. I notice what month it is; September. It looks like I’ll be skipping school this semester. I didn’t want to, but sometimes we fall down mountains, you know?

~\__________________

So, it’s been three days, I’m about ready to head back to where I would’ve been and set out with a clear head. The good mews is that Ponyville’s a pretty big city. Hasn’t always been this way, but the Elements of Harmony living here tends to encourage expansion.

So, I’ll be heading out now, off to hopefully see the world.

-Long Hike

Author's Note

You get two updates in one day! How lucky!

I was just really excited for this chapter, and it is more light-hearted than the rest. Long Hike has devolved from ‘scatterbrain’ to ‘AD/HD’, but I have more experience with AD/HD, so I know how to write for it.

I was planning on making Deep Jade a love interest, but I realized the fanfic reference she is would’ve made that very problematic, she seems too young for middle-aged Long Hike, and I suck at writing romance, so be thankful she isn’t one. I’m not completely discounting the idea of one in the future, but don’t count on it.