Rolling the odometer over the Tigris River

I am on track to roll the odometer, knock on wood, with some friends in Portland over Memorial Day weekend.

(By “roll the odometer” I mean walk my 1,000th mile — I have 869 so far.)

That naturally got me to thinking, where will I roll the odometer in Turkey? So I consulted my route planning guide and a map, and lo and behold, the 1,000th mile in Turkey is the Tigris River. In Turkey I’ll roll the odometer when I cross one of the most significant rivers in the history of human civilization. Nice!

It also so happens that in Turkey the Tigris River is on the eastern edge of the city of Diyarbakir. In Diyarbakir I’ll be visiting a good friend of mine from Istanbul who lives there now. In Portland I’ll be rolling the odometer with friends, and when I roll it again in Turkey, I’ll be with friends, too.

A couple of “by the ways”…

I will have crossed the Euphrates at mile 833. Also, I am well aware that in Turkey I’ll be switching to kilometers as the standard measure of distance, so the people for whom a mile is the standard measure of distance won’t be with me when I cross the Tigris.