Moving vs. Running: On Novelty, Memory, and the Shape of Days

The Anatomy of a 105-Day U.S. Adventure, Part 2: The second of a multi-part series on the numbers, the stories, and what I carried home from my 2023 U.S. cross-country road trip.

Note: As I look back on my U.S. road trip in preparation for my upcoming European adventure, these essays go beyond the data to share the stories hidden between the rows and columns of my trip spreadsheet. They serve as a constant reminder that real adventures, real living, happen in the space between planning and expectations.

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I woke up this morning in a malaise.

This is unusual for me. Morning is my happy time. Even in these dark winter months, I delight in the early hours, when I have the world to myself. Starting fresh, with a new day and endless possibilities ahead, feels like magic. It’s my creative time. When I write, when I think deeply.

But I hadn’t slept well, and I was groggy and disoriented when Leo and his friend Ziggy nudged me awake. Time to get up! We need to go out. Pay attention, please!

I was lucky the dogs were there. I had no choice but to start moving, to go outside. To say good morning to the day. I walked through the village here in Woodstock and then took the path up to Billings National Park. My usual thirty-minute sojourn stretched into a two-hour hike that cleared my head and deposited me back into a good place.

It’s funny how the right kind of movement can do that.

But not just any movement. Moving through novel experiences, meeting new people, accepting new challenges, traversing new terrain, like my winter hike this morning, is beneficial not just for our well-being, but for our sense of time.

It’s a lesson I learned on my U.S. road trip in 2023.

In the months leading up to that adventure, I had a 140-item to-do list. There was nothing unusual about it, just all the things that need doing before leaving home for three and a half months: finding someone to bring in and sort my mail, writing instructions for the couple dog-sitting Leo, and so on.

In the weeks before the trip, I was in full running mode. Efficient. Productive. This was Susan at her best. Or so I thought at the time. But here’s the thing: if you asked me what I did that summer before I hit the road, it’s all a blur. And this isn’t simply because two and a half years have passed. Even then, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what I’d done just a few weeks earlier. Time flew. The days melted into one another as I ran from task to task, checking off my list of mundane but necessary obligations.

Now, ask me what I was doing at the beginning of October that same year, during my trip, and I can recount it in exquisite detail.

I had just arrived at Yellowstone National Park for my very first visit. After entering through the East Entrance from Cody, Wyoming, I pulled over to gaze at Yellowstone Lake, then felt a little thrill when I passed the sign marking the Continental Divide. Later, I sat for an hour in the Inn at Old Faithful, people-watching and talking to strangers as I sipped tea and studied park maps, planning my days ahead.

The next morning, I stepped outside before sunrise and found the Blue Car encased in ice (this is what happens when you park beside Old Faithful and the temperature drops below freezing overnight). I remember the red beard and bright blue cap of the man I asked for help (no, he didn’t have an ice scraper), and my quiet satisfaction when my National Parks Annual Pass did the trick. The hot springs at sunrise, the mist and ethereal light, my hike along the Fairy Falls Trail later that morning—all of it is imprinted in my mind in startling detail.

Most of all, I remember how the day stretched on and on, unfolding slowly from one experience to the next in a national park established in 1872 but entirely new to me.

The contrast between my frenzied pre-trip days and the spacious days of novel road trip experiences is striking. Before the trip, I was busy. I was productive. I was in “Susan” mode—efficient, dependable, moving steadily toward my departure date. I was running. Time flew by, and I remember almost none of it.

During the trip, I was moving constantly—but everything was new. Every moment unfamiliar, intriguing, surprising. Those 105 days passed in a deliciously slow way, and I remember them vividly. I suspect most people share this experience: moments during travel linger more brightly than the days at home spent cooking the same dinners, running the same errands, following the same routines. Novel encounters simply don’t compete with grocery store aisles or car washes.

It turns out those novel moments do more than jog our memories. They stretch our perception of time.

Research in neuroscience suggests that time feels faster as we age not only because we’ve lived longer, but because our brains process fewer novel experiences. New experiences create more memory “markers,” making time feel fuller and slower in retrospect. When our days are routine-heavy, memory—and time—compresses. When our days are rich with novelty, memory—and time—expands.

I don’t know about you, but I would prefer life didn’t speed along. I miss the days when my younger self felt that my birthday would never arrive. I’ve lived more than half my life, and even writing that brings a flicker of despair. I don’t want what remains to race by unremarkable and unmemorable.

This morning, my mind cleared a little more with every step on a trail I had never walked in December. My familiar view was replaced by bare trees and the sound of rushing water beneath crusted ice—sounds I never hear in summer, when leaves rustle and birds chatter. Snow crunched underfoot. The white, snow-laden roof of a shelter along the trail was a new sight in a once-familiar landscape. As I climbed higher in elevation, I could see the roof of a house once owned by friends who recently moved back to the UK.

I can recall every moment of that hike. I wasn’t on autopilot. I was present. I slowed down. And the entire day felt longer.

I’m heartened by the idea that the quality of time truly matters. I’ve always known this instinctively, but reminders help. The quantity of days may be dwindling for all of us, but we still have agency over their quality.

I’m not a woman who dwells in the past, but I can’t help reflecting on how much running I’ve done—running to prove myself, running for acceptance, running away from grief and hard truths. That time feels blurred, even lost.

What I learned on my road trip was how to slow down. How to move through the world awake and attentive. How to embrace novelty. I had never felt so stimulated, so alive. Time expanded graciously, offering the gift of memorable minutes and hours.

Now, as I look toward Europe, I carry these lessons with me. This next journey is about novel encounters—with places, with strangers, with ideas, and perhaps most importantly, with parts of myself I haven’t met yet. I expect each day to be slow and wonderful, no matter what comes my way.

We don’t need to travel, nor do we need Dr. Who or a TARDIS, to play with time. Research suggests three things slow our perception of our days and allow us to enjoy each precious moment: embracing novelty, learning new skills, and staying physically and mentally engaged. All of them bring us back into the present moment.

I have been practicing the quiet trick of creating more time without knowing it—often with the help of the Blue Car. Curves in lieu of checklists. Encounters instead of expectations. And make no mistake, I am still rusty at this. A lifetime of habits isn’t overcome by one or two trips. But I am making progress and my goal is clear.  

Running fills time. I don’t want to fill time, I want to stretch it.