Southboro (sort of)

On my ninety-ninth day of walking I woke up in my tent, on the lawn of a Dunkin Donuts. At seven fifteen the manager came out to talk to me, telling me through the open door of my tent that I probably couldn't stay much longer. "That's route 1," he said, pointing at the highway nearby, "and it's after seven now so you won't be able to sleep any more." I didn't know exactly what he meant, but I got up anyway, brushed my teeth and went inside to get breakfast and wash up in the bathroom. Afterwards I packed up my tent and my pack and was walking by eight twenty, under cloudy skies.
I got a little turned around after a few miles of walking, in the small city of New London, because the highway joined with the interstate and I had to guess which way to go to follow it to where it would come out. Before I found the route again I climbed up some cool looking cliffs and took a break at the top, and met a man who was living nearby, his sleeping bag stretched out underneath some scrub oak, above and overlooking the town. Neither of us had much to say, but I felt a cordial warmth from him. He mumbled that I should stay nearby, said that the police wouldn't bother me and said that he would get us a bottle for the night, but I said that I had to keep moving.
After asking several other locals for directions, back in town, I got on the pedestrian path over the three quarters of a mile long Gold Star Memorial Bridge, and after weaving a little bit more on the other side of the inlet found my way back onto the highway. After an hour or so of more walking I spotted a restaurant called the 99, one of which I had never seen before, and figured that I had to check it out. The restaurant turned out to be the ninety-ninth 99, and for the ninety-ninth day I had fried shrimp, french fries, and cole slaw.
At six or six thirty, having moved quite a bit more, I crossed a smaller bridge and spied a boardwalk heading off along the water, and decided to follow it for a ways. After two hundred yards or so the boardwalk ended at a small park, and I unloaded my pack and took the rest of the day off. Walking another path along the water, and then climbing over an old railroad bridge, I was about to jump in for a quick swim, but noticed, fortunately, that there were hundreds and hundreds of pale jellyfish drifting along just under the surface. Schools of some sort of small fish darted frantically among them, too, and I sat and watched them until dark.
For the night I stretched my poncho off of the back of the park bench, pounded stakes in the ground to make a decent shelter, and slept well until six thirty, when it started to rain fairly hard. I packed up early, getting soaked, and then followed the boardwalk back out to the road. Just a little ways farther I found a Lighthouse Bakery, and spent the next few hours drinking coffee and watching the weather channel, then called Don and Carol, who had told me the previous day that when it started raining I should have them come and get me.
In such manner I have been staying with the Hamelins for the last three days, sleeping in a bed and eating particularly well. The rain hasn't let up much since I've been here, but it's supposed to break up later today and give way to a nice rest of the week, so I'm getting packed up and later Don and Carol will drive me back to where they picked me up and I'll start walking again just a few miles from the Rhode Island border.

Westport

I'm in Connecticut now, after crossing the border on Sunday and being treated to an all night rain storm. I woke up yesterday morning with a gallon of water in the bottom of my tent and my sign weighing twice as much as the day before. But out of the cold looks of New Jersey and the blank faces of New York I'm finding Connecticut to have a bigger portion of friendly strangers, waving me through.

I didn't leave the big city until Saturday, and it felt wonderful to have NYC crossed off the list. The day was full of sun, of blue sky, and finally the heat took a break, and a cool wind blew down on me from the north. I felt the water to the east, saw the seabirds turning in the air and squawking above me, noticed fall on the street corners, in the fluttering of oak leaves straining to break away, color rushing to their faces and veins throbbing and purple in their effort and I heard, on that cool breeze coming down the evening streets of Mount Vernon and New Rochelle, the whispering of Maine. Like a lover it calls to me, now, as I dance up the coast, telling me that I'm close, that it waits patiently for my step, my barefoot caress.

NYC

Last Monday, walking down the road still in Pennsylvania, a mother and daughter stopped to talk with me, and gave me a bag of goodies and drinks. Maybe an hour later Jessica, the daughter, came back with a van and three of her friends, and they picked me up and took me into dinner where they treated me to dinner at the Tom Jones. Afterwards we drove to two houses in the country, where I met four or five other friends and chilled out into the evening. They dropped me off at a little park back on route and I fell asleep feeling, for the first time in a while, actually, very lonely. If I were able to let myself get attached to a place, to forget about the trip and my schedule, I think I would have spent more time in Pennsylvania.
As it was, I walked into Philladelphia the next day, through and past it the next, and was at the New Jersey line by Friday night, sleeping next to the river and crossing into Trenton in the morning.
Yesterday I made it into the big city, and spent most of my day twisting around the streets of Chinatown. In the incredible hubbub of a hot Tuesday I managed to get myself lost in the crowds, and seemingly wasn't even noticed in a city that certainly sees its fair share of crazy people. The sensation was pleasant, especially after leaving New Jersey, where I felt that most pairs of eyes looked at my bare feet and sweat caked clothes as if I were someone that wasn't particularly welcome on their street.
But I'm well showered now, and am washing clothes as I write, and am sleeping tonight, as I did last night, well taken care of.
This morning I walked to an interview at Fox News.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4308581/walking-barefoot-for-charity/

I'm Trying

Because ego confines:
Trust the world. Trust the world to the point when it takes everything, strips you of all that you called yours. Then, as it leaves and is laughing, open your arms and give it also your blessing. To trust the world is to act humbly. To trust it to utter ruin, to willingly sacrifice self and possession and name, is to be free.

Kennett Square

I couldn't break away from Baltimore, couldn't get fully enthused about leaving the mixture of sanctitude and incredible fun. It was, as Rachel would say, 'Ballin out a' control.' We went cliff diving, rock climbing, hiking and swimming, played some grand Monopoly, and I got a good taste of the Baltimore night life. Every night I came back to a bed, and the generousity of the Delauder family kept me hooked.
But I did get itchy feet, as the road would dictate, and I'm in Pennsylvania now, starting to rack up these smaller and more northern states. The forests are still green and thick but the sun doesn't burn here quite as hard, though the locals still say it's plenty hot.
Yesterday afternoon a man pulled over and yelled across the road about my sign, and cause, and trip. He said good luck and drove up the road, but quickly turned around to see if I had eaten and to let me know that I'd probably be walking right past his house in the next town up the road, and sure enough, as I got into Avondale I glanced across the street to see him waving me inside.
T.J. is an organizer, a political man with a lot of energy and contacts, and as he and his wife fed me dinner in their home we exchanged information, and looked at my planned route for a ways, and I could see, as they say, the gears turning in T.J.'s head. I was sent on my way with a bag full of powerade and snackables and a big bag of fried chicken.
I walked leisurely for two hours, until close to ten thirty, and saw a place not far from the road behind some closed buildings that looked like a good place to camp out. I walked over, liked what I saw, felt tired and ready to stop, but decided to press a little bit farther. Not more than two minutes after getting back on the pavement, T.J. drove up, telling me that the Hilton hotel three miles up the road was waiting for me, as was the next Applebee's. He and a lady named Jenny, from the hotel, had quickly collaborated and arranged a suite for the night and another good meal, plus breakfast in the morning.
By the time I got close to the Hilton it was eleven thirty, and Jenny met me a block down the road and walked me to my room, then across the street where I found the Applebee's ready to take my order.
T.J. tells me that he's not done helping me out, telling me that he's lining up a "Ten day contingency," and though I don't know exactly what's in store I know that I'm not going to have to hunt for food in the near future. As well as the meals I've already had and the pack fillers from T.J.'s home, the night staff at the Hilton gave me three big Ziplock's full of things to munch on. My back will complain a little bit when I'm walking this morning, but it will be the only part of me.

I'm feeling so incredibly blessed that I want to walk forever. Though the thought of home still wets my tongue, and though I miss my friends and family in Colorado, I feel like the road is the place that I'm happiest, the place that I feel like I'm going somewhere and not simply spinning my wheels. One of the biggest dissatisfactions I've had with education is that it seems like it's always aimed at something far away in the distance, with little or no functional attachment to now, today. Here I find that regardless of the number of miles between me and Canada, there is a tangible truth in every step. I know where I'm at, not simply where I'm headed.

Baltimore

I made it into the D.C. area on Friday, carrying a new sign that I picked up two days before. It's a big dry erase board, and I've made it say different things on and off but mostly it says 'GIVE SHOES.ORG,' and it's given me a new way of connecting with the cars that drive by all day. I had thought about getting a sign before but had always thought that it would be too much of a hassle, but now that I have one I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

Saturday I was supposed to meet up with Sondra Clark, Allan and Silvana's daughter and a S4S spokesperson, but I woke up feeling woosy and a little dizzy, and before I got to downtown I threw up next to the road, so I turned around and went back to my room. By evening I felt a little better, and Sunday morning seemed to have gotten over whatever it was, and I walked through most of the day.

I had been in contact for a few days with Rachel, a friend from college in Durango who lives in Baltimore, and as the timing would have it another friend from Durango, Cherie, had flown out to visit Rachel earlier in the eek. Sunday night they drove down and picked me up, and since then I've been staying here in Baltimore, finishing off a great few days of leisure and respite and meeting a lot of people. Yesterday we drove to Cunningham Falls State Park, and climbed up a waterfall and swam in the nearby lake. Today we went to the Baltimore Zoo and got a tour of the city and the bay.

Probably I'll be walking again tomorrow, and as always it will be hard to leave friends and a bed and roof behind.

Ladysmith

I didn't leave South Hill until Tuesday afternoon, and made only slow progress for a while, meaning that I had to walk late into the night. At some point, maybe around ten or ten thirty, still several miles out of the next town, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and looked over to see a fawn laying on its side in the middle of the opposite lane, kicking its legs. My first reaction was to turn my head away and keep walking, but twenty feet up the road I swung about and came back. The fawn, still splashed with spots, lay with its right eye swollen up badly, its head bruised and slightly bloody. I picked the poor thing up and it thrashed hard in my hands and cried out little neighs, and I laid it back down in the grass on the side of the road. I poured a little water in its mouth, then just stood there for a minute or two, quietly watching and unwantingly judging its chances. Without knowing anything else to do I walked away.

My feet have their good days and their bad days, their good and bad weeks. The heat, which yes, is back, doesn't help them but I find ways around it - walking in the ditch instead of on the pavement, or on the white line instead of the shoulder, or on the yellow line down the middle, even. Sometimes, too, I've gotten in the habit of pouring a little bit of water in the dirt and making mud, then stomping around in it until my feet are covered. No tactic helps for very long, because conditions change quickly, but together they get me through.

The insects have been bad in Virginia, so far. I have woken up on several mornings to find ants swarming inside seemingly every nook of my backpack, and I pour them out in cupfulls and dance around to keep from being bitten. Flying ones, too, harass me as I walk, and I've pulled close to two dozen ticks of of myself in the last ten days or so.

My spirits, I think, remain high on average, and the seperation that I described in my last post seems like an old and unneeded vice. Yes I'm talking to people every day and yes I enjoy interaction at every level. Of course I'd rather not have to scrounge for my daily social requirements, but I take what I can get.