It would be a logical assumption to say walking is in Lew Jury's blood.

After all, at 73, he walks almost every day four to nine miles. And for the last four years, he's journeyed "across the pond" to England and Wales for three weeks of perambulating through moors,  seaside cliffs, sheep-dotted countryside and along storied rivers.

He's backpacked in many of this country's rugged and breathtaking mountain ranges.

But the retired longtime Manheim Central School District superintendent wasn't born with wanderlust. Far from it.

Growing up in a coal region of northern Dauphin County, "my world was defined by the tops of the mountains," Jury says while sitting — something he rarely does — in the living room of his Manheim home.

"I lived in a narrow valley that may have been two miles wide. My horizon was very much skewed. I never saw 180 degrees of the sky."

Born into near poverty during the Depression, his family never owned a car until he was 12. He only half jokingly says he thought the world stopped at Pottsville.

"We didn't have a car so we went for walks," he recalls. He has an uncle, a World War II veteran, who at 93 still walks four to six miles each day.

In the 1960s, at age 32, someone loaned Jury a backpack and he took his young son, Lon, on an overnight trip on the Appalachian Trail for the first time. That son, now 50, is about to climb Oregon's Mount Hood.

The experience lit a fire. Jury backpacked his way over much of the Appalachian Trail between Virginia and New York. He made overnight jaunts on most of the major trails in Pennsylvania, including the Black Forest, Loyalsock and Susquehannock.

He made long journeys on the Pacific Crest Trail and trips with provisions on his back in such western mountain ranges as the Wind River, Rockies, Green River and Bighorn.

His peripatetic nature fit his personality. Around Manheim, "Doc" is known as a man who sits little.

It was a great run and took Jury to the far reaches of wild places he only had read about as a kid.

But by and by he found his body less able to rise to the beating of backpacking.

"I finally got to the age where I can't carry a 50-pound pack without paying for it for two weeks, so now I'm into walking, not backpacking," Jury says.

He's likely to be seen on his daily walks alone on game lands around Mount Gretna, the Lancaster Junction Trail near Landisville, the Lebanon Valley Rail-Trail and other local pathways.

After 15 years as Manheim Central's school superintendent, Jury announced his retirement in 1993, 20 days after his first grandson was born. He and his wife, Jackie, spend part of every day with one of their three grandchildren.

A diabetic, Jury partly walks to ward off insulin dependence. But there's a simpler reason as well.

"I enjoy walking," he says. "I'm very relaxed when I'm walking. I don't know, it's not quite as natural as breathing but it's just something I like to do."

His walking entered a new realm four years ago.

It began with a dinner guest, Bob Coldiron, of Philipsburg. The two have been chums since working together on their doctorates in education administration at Penn State.

Coldiron, a year older than Jury, had returned from a cross-country trip across England high country and had had a miserable time.

His friend's discomforts notwithstanding, such a trip immediately appealed to Jury. "I'm no Anglophile, but I am interested in history," he explains. "I wanted to go someplace where language was not going to be a particular barrier to me because I did not want to go with planned groups."

He turned to his dinner companion: "Let's try it again." Coldiron's response: "OK, let's go."

And late in the spring of 2008 they did.

For two weeks they walked the cliffs of Cornwall, such as Land's End, overlooking the Celtic Sea in extreme southwestern England.

Even before the trip was over, Jury knew a tradition had been born. He gushed to his friend, "We're going to do this again and again and again."

That first trip set a template that has worked well for three subsequent  excursions. Each involves about three weeks of walking.

They set up base camp in old but well-stationed hotels with fine dining in country villages.

On a typical day, they arise at a civilized time, eat a hearty English breakfast and are delivered by taxi to a trail head.

They'll walk at a leisurely pace all day, taking in their surroundings, hobnobbing with fellow travelers, perhaps stopping for tea along the way.

They may carry their lunch for al fresco dining at a suitably sublime spot, or eat in a village along the way. They're picked up and back at the hotel for a fine meal before sleeping peacefully.

All their lodging, trail transportation and hiking routes are arranged by Footpaths Holidays, www.footpath-holidays.com, based in Wiltshire, England.

Hiking in England is such a pleasant mix of pastoral and rugged country connected by historic towns because walking is a kind of national pastime.

"All over England you have these wonderful trails that have been there for thousands of years that connect these little villages and towns that were not developed into roadways," Jury marvels.

"And they have these wonderful walking paths that are preserved. It's essentially a right to walk. They go through people's gardens. I've literally walked under people's homes."

That unfettered walking imperative includes steps or gates, called stiles, placed over stone fences and other obstructions. If there is a bull in a field with a public pathway, the farmer puts out a sign, "Bull In Field."

In 2009, they made their way on various paths in the Cotswolds in southcentral England, an area known for sheep grazing on gentle hills, villages with old houses uniformly fashioned from honey-colored limestone and stone walls pieced together in the 18th and 19th centuries without cement.

They also walked part of the coast in Wales, with spectacular views high over the Irish Sea.

In 2010, the pair walked the South Downs of southeastern England and its chalk cliffs and short, springy turf.  "It was like walking through a Robin Hood movie," Jury recalls.

The cliffs give up flint and most of the homes and buildings are built out of it.

They also walked through Exmoor, an area of hilly open moorland in southwest England. It was once the royal forest and hunting ground and has many small villages and hamlets.

It was also the setting for "Lorna Doone," the famous 1869 romance novel. Their stone base hotel was built in the 12th century.

There was heather on the hills and the charm never ceased to surprise. "Out of the middle of nowhere a farmer will have a tea room and it's because England is a country of walkers and people will show up for tea," Jury says fondly.

This past spring, they concentrated on walking parts of the famous Thames River, starting near Oxford. "It's a pathway into the heart of England," Jury says, showing a photo of a placid section with one of the low draft boats that people live on on the river.

After a thorough taste of the Thames, the wandering hikers traveled to the midlands of England in the Derbyshire region.

This is Izaak Walton territory and they marveled at the clear streams with finning wild trout in the Dove and other rivers.

A third week of walking was made in the Yorkshire Dales with its crags, Pennines hills, pastures, dale bottoms and heather moorlands.

They walked part of the Pennine Way National Trail, one of England's long-distance equivalents to the Appalachian Trail.

Jury and his walking companion show no signs of waning interest in exploring English soil.

"I'm going to keep doing it until I can't do it. You never know," says Jury reflectively.

"You're only one little back pain and pancreatic cancer away from ending it all."
acrable@lnpnews.com
For a listing of outdoors events throughout Lancaster County this week and beyond, go to lancasteronline.com. Click on Sports, then Outdoors.