WALK TO LIVE: Old Spanish Trail journey helps ‘Mission Walker’ find grace in hectic world

Edie Littlefield Sundby’s life took a turn when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and lost a lung to the disease.
To help fight the depression and despair, she started walking the 1,600-mile El Camino Real de las Californias mission trail that runs from northern California into Mexico. It was a way to heal herself physically and spiritually. Now she’s walking the Old Spanish Trail from southern California to the Atlantic coast of Florida, recently passing through Broussard, New Iberia, Jeanerette, Baldwin and Franklin.
“I’m walking to slow life down,” Sundby said. “I certainly don’t want to walk fast. I’m walking to connect with people, with places, with God. As John Muir said, walking washes our spirit clean. But one of the things I think is true is that walking clears out our minds. It cleans our spirit, but it clears our minds.
“And in today’s world, we’ve got to be able to get out and purge out. God told Job, ‘pour out they overflowings’ (of anger), and we’re filled with all these overflowings today: noise and distractions. So you get out here, you slow life down. Pour out all the overflowings. And what happens to you is what fills that space is grace, and you feel this most amazing sense of transcendence and peace and acceptance.”
She said that the national media likes to stress the things that divide people, but she’s found it different when she’s away from the drama that consumes people’s lives daily through social media and negative news.
“When you get out here, there’s none of that,” she said. “We’re all one. We’re all spiritual beings doing our best. Of course, some days are better than others. But we’re all just people. When I’m out here, God is in his glory, and all is right with the world.
“It’s the spiritual stuff. It just brings you to your knees every day, every day.”
Now that she’s walking the Old Spanish Trail in Louisiana, Sundby has been amazed at how friendly everyone has been, especially in smaller communities and rural areas.
The Old Spanish Trail follows U.S. 90 and La. 182 at various points in South Louisiana. After going through St. Mary Parish this week, she was headed toward Houma later in the week.
She’s been greeted by almost everyone she’s seen in the rural areas she’s walked in South Louisiana.
“Friendly as they can be,” she said. “I’m a stranger — I look weird. I’m a stranger in a strange land. They’ll be on the porch, and they’ll wave at me, or they’ll be in the driveway and wave at me. They’re just as friendly as they can be.
“’Texas’ means friendly in Spanish. I don’t know what Louisiana means other than King Louis, but it’s as friendly a place as I’ve ever been.”
She’s also loved the way each community differentiates itself, from Sulphur with its “Faith, Family and Community” signs to Crowley (Rice Capital of the World) and Rayne (Frog Capital of the World) and Scott (Boudin Capital of the World) and Jeanerette (Sugar City).
Sundby, 71, wrote a book (The Mission Walker) about her experience walking the Mission Trail.
“I started walking that (trail) six months after I lost my right lung,” she said. “It’s not exercise, you know. It’s walking to breathe, and walking to live, and walking to heal.”
After finishing that journey, Sundby wasn’t ready to give up walking and is now on the Louisiana leg of her walk of the 2,817-mile Old Spanish Trail that runs from southern California to the Atlantic coast of Florida. She began the 300-plus mile Louisiana journey on Feb. 5 at the old burned-out U.S. 90 bridge between Texas and Louisiana at the Sabine River in Calcasieu Parish.
“Walkers, we need a place to walk,” Sundby said. “You need a purpose, and these old trails are fantastic. Some people say, ‘it’s not old, it’s not Spanish,’ and that’s hogwash.”
She noted that she stopped at a faded historical marker in Sorrel, a small St. Mary Parish community between Jeanerette and Baldwin, which states that the community is the site of one of the early ranches along the Old Cattle Route from Mexico (now Texas) to Vacherie on the Mississippi River. The cattle ranch, started by Jacques Joseph Sorrel in the 1750s, covered some 3,000 acres, according to the marker.
Sundby said she’s enjoyed meeting people on her walk through South Louisiana.
“I can’t even begin to tell you,” she said. “I have people stop every day, wherever I am, and say, ‘Are you okay? Can I help you?’ Or, ‘Can I give you some water? Do you need some food?’ Just in the middle of nowhere, people will pull over and stop. It’s beyond friendly.”
She is walking alone, though her husband has accompanied her for most of the trip in their camper van. On Monday, though, he had to go to Colorado to deal with a work emergency. So now her oldest sister’s granddaughter has come out “on a little adventure” and is driving the camper van.
“I do walk alone because who else wants to do something like this?” she said. “It’s like Thoreau said, if you walk alone, you leave now. If you walk with somebody, you wait till they’re ready.”
She’s loved having her grand-niece on the trip now, she said.
“It’s delightful to have a young person (in her 30s) who understands and enjoys Google and Apple maps,” Sundby said. “I promised her when I made my 10 miles today. We’d go on a gator tour.”
Sundby said the lengthy sidewalks struck her along the Old Spanish Trail (Hwy. 182) in Centerville.
“They’ve got almost a 2 1/2 mile sidewalk in Centerville,” she said. “What does that tell you? It’s in pretty good condition, too, because people walk. Those little towns were built to walk in. I’ve actually seen more people walking out in Broussard, Centerville, and places like that than anywhere. That just struck me in Centerville.”
She said that Sundby’s approach to walking the Old Spanish Trail differs from how she made the Mission Trail. In Mexico, the lower part of that journey covers about 800 miles. The Jesuit trail is the lower part of the Mission Trail in California, and the Franciscan Trail is in northern California, from north of San Francisco to Sonoma.
“I’m doing this (Old Spanish Trail walk) differently,” she said. “When I started walking the California Mission Trail, I did that as a through-walk. In other words, I walked through Mexico, really with the help of vaqueros (cowboys), as much on a donkey as walking because the Sierras (are so rugged). And I did California and the old Franciscan trail, another 800 miles, as a through-walk. I did each of those in two months.
“This walk, the Old Spanish Trail, which starts in San Diego and goes all the way to St. Augustine, Florida, I’m doing this in segments,” she said. “And a good segment’s about 300 miles, which is perfect because Louisiana, which used to be in East Orange, Louisiana, which no longer exists, is a little over 300 miles from the Sabine River to Slidell. So I’m doing Louisiana as a through-walk.
“It’s just delightful. It’s 2,817 miles between San Diego and St. Augustine, Florida. There are about four major crossroads across the United States, and the Old Spanish Trail road is the shortest distance between San Diego and St. Augustine, the shortest way to get across the United States.”
It’s also the most interesting way to cross the United States, she feels.
“It’s just the history out here,” she said. “Many of these communities have retained a lot of their culture.”
For instance, she met John and Lillie Mae Norbert, who, at ages 90 and 76, served plate lunches of Creole food at Norbert’s Restaurant in Broussard.
“Their daughter Millicent is the tourist director there in Broussard, and she traced their ancestry back to Nigeria,” Sundby said. “(Their ancestors) had been brought over in the 1700s, where they’d stayed all that time. So you meet people like that, and it’s a very intimate walk through a place like Louisiana.”
Sundby said she’ll probably walk Mississippi and Alabama’s Old Spanish Trail as one segment rather than splitting them into individual segments of her walk of the trail because that’s under 200 miles.