It’s interesting when you start to do some research for a story just how much incidental information you can pick up. For example, how far can you ride a horse in a day? Apparently a fit horse could travel anything up to one hundred miles in a day, provided that it could be rested for a few days after. Or Whitehaven, now a large town in Cumbria, when it was only a small fishing village was part of the sale of Copeland from the King of Strathclyde, (Wikipedia is wonderful).
Not every piece if research can make it into the story, but knowing what is and isn’t true can at least allow the writer’s mind to wander in the land he/she has created and hopefully help the story grab the reader’s imagination.
Plus of course, allowing yourself to be distracted occasionally helps to break up the working session.
Incidentally, the characters are all headed to the same general area and whatever awaits them there.
Current word count is now a healthy 52000.