[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Sharon, I must humbly disagree. Although the delay in the beginning of the Fellowship is unusual (months! and wasting the summer) the delays throughout the rest of the story are normal and clearly portray Tolkien's knowledge of the outdoors.

He was a real hiker, liked to walk, and one can tell from his accurate descriptions of the journey (bugs, no shelter, rain, cold, fog, getting lost) that he really knew what it was like in the outdoors. It is one of my pet peeves that so many writers conveniently locate easy-to-find, comfortable, dry caves of good size, and no bats in the middle of a forest! There. I got that off my chest.

Or they never take note of the weather, the effect it has on your journey, or of being tired, wet, or hungry.

Trust me, I know from my own hiking experience (I like to do week-long solo hikes in the Cascade mountains), once you get to warm baths and beer, uh, you don't really want to move for a while.

Your bones remember the walking and sleeping on hard ground, even as your mouth is telling the tale as if it were nothing.

Your stomach remembers the nights you couldn't get a fire lit (OK, I use a white gas camp stove, but I've had a stove crap out on me) and had to choke down beef jerkey with cold water for dinner.

And there's this period, especially after being out there a week or more, Especially if you hit hard weather (not to mention a few scares and a Nazgul or two), where it just seems to take a while for the warmth to seep back into your bones, where you're physically and mentally ready to head out again.

A five-day backpack takes minimum two days recovery, more like three.

That's with modern equipment, titanium cooksets, free-standing rip-stop nylon tents with easy set-up shock-cord aluminum poles, ultra-lite spectra cloth backpacks with padded hipbelts and computer-designed hot-**** load distribution systems, warm-yet-light mid-to-heavyweight fleece tops, 6oz easy-sleep evasote pads, quick-dry capilene long underwear and GoretexTM waterproof-breathable jackets.

It was 14-days or so just from Weathertop, carrying canvas (which soaks up water in the rain btw, almost doubling its weight) and tin, wearing bulky heavy wool, no shelter, and no hot food most of the time. Yeah, I bet they needed that miruvor.

The wind, the weather, the exertion, fills your body and mind - and it takes times for you to come back. It takes a lot out of you.

We get spoiled with our automobiles and trains and buses, where travel is relatively restful, and if you're not driving, a time to read, knit, and so forth.

It may have the effect of valuing home, but that's simply inherent to exhaustion.

-Maril