4/29- Leaving Cape May

I awoke this time at the crack of dawn. It was 6am, hadn't rained at all over night, but the skies were starting to really cloud up. Todd and I had batted around the idea of getting up really early for that diner breakfast with the fisherman, but he'd told me before going to sleep he was thinking 7am. I let him be, packed up my things so they were ready but water proofed under the tarp, then went out for a stroll around the docks.

It was beautiful, the sun was rising between the gathering clouds over all the boats starting to putter out to sea. The wind was pretty fierce as well, which I love, so all that mingled with a morning calm made for an invigorating walk by the harbor.

A little while after I got back Todd woke up and the morning breakdown of camp began. His irritation from the day before had calmed and within an hour we were treating ourselves to a diner breakfast at Dock Mike's with Dottie, our waitress. She was delightful, as was the emptiness of the place and the food on our plates. It hit me that, though Todd's addiction to cigarettes and coffee is costly, my addiction to diner's is more so. I can never eat in a diner and not think of my Dad. Its a strange connection, but if you know him, its also an easy one. My love of eating out at greasy spoons, especially while traveling and looking to talk to people, is definitely from his influence.

We lingered a long while there, and Dottie was kind enough to keep our refills coming. It was another meander day and the clouds outside had finally massed and decided to soak the day over time with a steady drizzle. Around 11 we finally headed out to sit by the Garden State entrance in hopes of a ride.

Despite the rain we had a good time with it. I was the thumb guy for the day, due to my positioning, and would thumb obvious turn downs like the postman or local bus drivers. Usually I'd get big laughs and thumbs up in response with the occasional horn as well.

An hour or so went by before we got a cop to roll up on us. He was quite friendly and simply told us hitching was illegal in Jersey, but then supplied us with a NJ Transit schedule to Atlantic City he just happened to have on him. No IDing or any of that stuff, just let us know we weren't supposed to do what we were doing and that was that. Take some notes Tennessee PD. Doing your job correctly increases support for what it is you do.

Shuffling off back into town we made our way to the bus station. It was $4.75 each to AC and we figured it seemed like a cheap way to give us another good push. I called my Mom on the way down to update her on our ever shifting plans.

The brief tour of the town was nice. We hadn't gotten down to the more public beach end of town, so we were amused by the typical cutesy East Coast beach house frills that seem to be all up and down the Atlantic for colonial remembrance. Ten minutes before the bus left, we got to the station and bought our tickets. Soon I was lost in watching the towns drift by as Todd typed away at Pocketmail.

Town watching from a bus, for me, is the broader version of people watching in restaurants or parks. Its one of the great subtle intrigues that hold my attention on trips like these. We rode for about an hour before Todd finished writing and noticed we were pulling into a Park n Ride. We knew there was a Park n Ride stop right before Atlantic City so we made the split second decision to jump off there. Our thinking was it'd be a far easier place to hitch, and camp if unsuccessful, than in the city. Sound logic, but it turned out the rest stop was not only 20 miles south of the city, but nobody went there either.

As all of the realizations of our new surroundings sank in we decided on an alternate plan. Across the Parkway and a small field was US-9, which paralleled the Garden State. My Mom had also offered to pick us up on Saturday now that we were in Jersey, so we figured we could walk up Route 50 to close the gap some. My hope was that with 50 being a back country road we'd be likely to get a ride offer while walking, and it looked like a decent artery toward the north. We crossed over, found camp quickly and settled in with a nice meal for the next days walking.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/28- An Irritation

Waking up on that beach dune was a continuation of my little moment of heaven. I rose a little after the sun still feeling really good and in tune with life. Todd, however, did not.

I had a bit of time to myself, as he slept through, and was still so relaxingly giddy that I broke out the camera again and took some pictures of our camp and the beach. Todd woke up long enough to pee and point out where the Pocketmail was then crashed right back down again on top of the bivy. I took that time to pack up my things then recline against Ole Blue for another hour and write up some posts. I was still feeling grand and riding that calm wave of life.

Todd woke for the day around the time I finished writing and it seemed apparent right off that something was askew. He started asking me about how we were going to get out of town that day. This was followed up with a need for cigarettes and coffee, a craving that was definitely irritating him to be having. We started getting into how long we'd be in New York. Would we be in the city most of the time or at my Mom's? Worried about how much money would be siphoned out of our minimalist budgets visiting friends in a city like NYC. Just a bunch of planning questions that took me way off guard from my "in the moment" mentality that I'd thought he was sharing still. For a brief moment I was even thinking he was irritated with me for wanting to see friends in the city.

That did begin to get at me for a minute until I realized it. As soon as that hit me, that I was on the verge of becoming defensive, I was able to pull back a second and suddenly see quite clearly that he was just in general agitated. I still couldn't figure out why, but returning to my zen state of the past few days I was able to remain neutral and let him ride out what he needed to. It was a further boost for me to feel that return as I saw Todd struggling through.

A sort of calm returned to the morning as we began slowly packing up to the same pace as we had the day before at Martinak. Todd's agitation had subsided some, but was still vaguely beneath the surface. It seemed he was now suffering more from being agitated at the fact that he was agitated and didn't know why than anything else. As for me I was no longer affected at all and continued on having a great day with him exploring the town.

With a quick stop in the Post Office for more send offs, we went up to the Wawa I had plotted out back at the Denton library which beheld a surcharge free ATM for me. Coffee and cigarettes were to be had there as well, so we set up a mini camp for an hour or so as we situated ourselves to suddenly being in a new town, state, and environment following the few days in Denton. We then sauntered off with a curiosity of where to set up shop for hitching.

A little bit of rambling through strip malls followed by residential areas we arrived at a perfect place to catch ferry traffic heading either to US-9 or the Garden State Parkway. Our spirits were much higher now as we joked and thumbed at traffic for an hour and a half. The onset of night sent us scouting eastward, however, in hopes of finding the Atlantic side's version of the previous night's spot.

Instead of beaches and ocean we found a fishing wharf and island villa straight out of Popeye's world. A quick scout about as the sunset landed us down a secluded beach against the canal where we ducked into a den of reeds to make camp.

After laying out our camp in preparation for the possibility of rain that night we began debriefing each other on the day. Both of us were still perplexed at the mood shift in Todd but theories were forming. We both felt like the euphoria of the day before was a reward for learning the lessons of the weekend; that of patience and letting go of control. With that, it felt very much like now we were beginning on a new lesson. It was this transition to another unknown that we were thinking was the source of Todd's subtle irritation. As for what was the new lesson, it seemed to be now figuring out how to live practically in this state of mind.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/27- The Bounty of Rest

We awoke to another lackadaisical morning. Lazy just doesn't seem like the right word so I say lackadaisical despite really having no idea if I'm spelling it right or not. Alas, spell checker, I now see your curse with your absence. Anyway, lazy doesn't seem right because to me it implies a sluggishness, or sense of feeling no worth to the moment, leading to a degenerative complacence about anything that happens. This couldn't be further from our feeling that we've been riding since the end of that conversation over breakfast Saturday morning. We have been feeling so in tuned and at ease with trusting the moment's pace, that it removed any feeling of need beyond whatever pace felt right. That morning the pace was a quiet meander of taking showers, repacking, laying on the picnic bench staring up at the clear blue sky. That pace dropped us next to 404 again by 12:30 despite being up four hours by then.

We started to assume the same positions we'd had the day before by the guardrail. Old Blue was the sign bearer as we leaned against the rail ten feet away giving the overt, but subtle, impression that we would please like a ride. I think that lasted five, maybe ten minutes before Todd remembered his lessons in hitching last year. He moved us up to the roads edge with Ole Blue and hung our thumbs out at every passing car. By one, we had met Brian.

Brian picked us up after having just returned a week earlier from two years living in and traveling around Asia, mostly teaching English in Osaka, Japan. He drove us a good half hour into Delaware as we talked about our travels and his up coming plans to possibly go to Portland, Oregon and maybe a month or two down in Nicaragua. It struck me as intriguing that these places have all been mentioned quite a few times specifically in the past week or two. I like wondering if there is reason behind these strange coincidences.

Dropping us off at the cross roads of 9 and 13 in the town of Laurel, we parted ways giving him one each of our cards for the site. We crossed the intersection to a Shell station and dropped our packs below a Speed Limit sign, with the addition of a No Stopping, Standing, or Parking sign beneath it, which I thought was funny since we'd be sitting. However, we didn't make it to sitting down because another car pulled right up offering us a ride 12 miles closer to the ferry, putting us 16 away. We piled in and off we went.

Ben was driving and John rode shotgun as we barreled down the road. We told tales of our travels as they pointed out hometown landmarks, like the blue wood fencing covering a Rite Aid's windows due to Ben accidentally throwing one of his friends through them when they were 13. Good people, I liked these guys as well.

That particular landmark was beyond their offer of Georgetown because in talking with them Ben said he would take us all the way there had he the gas to do it. The two were just tooling around that day since Ben was off work for a bit due to a nasty tangle with a chainsaw. Todd suggested floating them a five for the gas plus and soon enough they dropped us hale and hearty at the door step of the Cape May- Lewes Ferry. Relax, let life lead and teach you what it deems necessary, and the bounty will come.

Purchasing our tickets from the lovely Audrey, she told us stories of her travels down into Mexico and Belize with her husband via RV, and on up to Alaska then back to Delaware to see the kids again. We then dropped ourselves on the deck outside and soaked in our achievement of getting to the crossing. I finally phoned my Mom as well to catch up with what was going on with her. It seemed like good timing since she was feeling a little down about things.

The ferry ride was gorgeous. Like true tourists we snapped pictures of the same water most of the way over, and stared off into it the rest of the time. What was foremost in my mind as we floated over was my genealogy studies of my Swedish and Finnish side. That line dates back to arriving in America back in the 1630s with the Swedish bid to establish colonies in the New World. They sailed right up the Delaware where I was now crossing about 380 years ago, many of them aboard that first boat, the Kalmar Nyckel.

Once we docked and disembarked, we threw our packs back on and strutted about half a mile around the corner to the beach. We had dinner to the sunset then dropped our bivys up in the dunes with a clear view of the huge night sky and the ocean before us. Neither of us could resist the urge to make calls to tell everyone.

The first person I had to call was my Dad, I just knew he'd love it. I don't know that I've talked much about what's going on with him these days, but his health was recently dealt a pretty bad blow. He suffered his third stroke in December and was literally knocked off his feet from it. He is also a devout and dedicated Christian Scientist, as I was raised but have since lost touch with, but for those of you who know nothing about the religion its widely known for trusting in God to heal you rather than doctors. He has stayed to impressively true to this faith and has also seen a relatively speedy recovery from being fully paralyzed and unable to speak the first few days after the stroke, to now being able to move about, go up and down stairs steadily, and communicate thoughtfully, albeit with a bit of a struggle often times. Its obviously intensely hard for me to watch my adventuresome Dad fall into this very definitive phase of old age and waning health, but it also intensifies my need to reconnect and strengthen our old bonds. Anyway, I mention all of this because I believe quite strongly that will has much to do with good health, and that happiness has everything to do with will. I know he too feels a strange distance with my sister and I and that every bit closer we come back to each other brings him more inward happiness.

I talked to him that night for maybe five or ten minutes, which I think is all his physical energy can handle these days. As I told him that I had just crossed the Delaware, was sleeping under the stars in front of the ocean, and I think even just the excitement in my voice his speech became suddenly much clearer, much more comprehensive and articulate. For a moment he seemed to me healed of this stroke from just talking to his son about camping. Take those impressions for what you will, but I see that conversation and feeling as very much a part of what this journey on a whole is about.

Afterward I had another really good talk with my friend Ang in Denver. She had quite a few revelations of her own to add to mine from this month. I then laid back on my pack and chatted all of this up with Todd until about 2am.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/26- The Awaited Wait

The Buddhists say life is change and the Greeks taught life is balance. I've always gone along with these things, but these days I'm really getting my head well wrapped around the two concepts. Sunday and Monday would also prove to be good lessons on our continued study of relaxing and letting life do the driving.

Once again we rose around 8:30, but this time we were heading out within an hour. There was no feel of a rush about it, we just woke up ready to go. It would be the first day Todd would truly introduce me to the wait-and-hitch method that he tried to introduce a few days earlier to my great agitation. This time I felt like a kid out of school, it was great.

As he noted I spent the first half the morning kicking back on the gas station curb writing up posts for the previous days. I finished after a few hours then just leaned back and watched the people go by, the waves of busy to dead that would ebb and flow in an oddly reliable pattern. That took us until around 3 when the sun made its way west and blasted us off our curb with intense heat.

Switching over to a guardrail for a few hours, then making our way down to the Food Lion, I was just reveling in how relaxed I felt about not moving anywhere. As I've said before, normally I find goals to push myself toward and get antsy when I feel stagnant. This is also my main problem with living in one apartment, or city, for any sustained duration. What the revelation was here was that I felt no rush, no need to get anything done, but no sense of being stagnant in anyway. I had no control over when we would catch a ride, where it would take us to, and with Todd's, now considered, Holy Wounded Heel to teach us to slow down again there was no thought of leaving on foot either.

I will concede I did have a crutch to help me relax that day. Early in the morning at the gas station my mind was still dabbling in "how long do we sit here before we decide no one is picking up two male back packers. Two days, three, a week?" To satiate my drivers mind I got myself giggling about having a Tortoise and the Hare race. I still really like the idea.

The race would be between Todd and I and over whose method would get them to Lewes first. I would be the tortoise with my slow but steady walking pace which, on my own, would probably be at about 20 miles a day. Todd would be the hare with his wait and sprint method. On his own he could quite likely pick up a ride on his own within an hour or two taking him 20 to 30 miles in half an hour, if not the whole way in an hour. We both got giggling about the concept. We figured if we were still there just sitting and waiting by Wednesday, four days later, we give it a go. That notion gave me the concrete vision of being in Lewes one way or another by Friday.

A bit of cheating on learning to wait, but sometimes crutches can help you learn if you're severely in need of a lesson. I never would have guessed it before, but I was in dire need and it illustrated itself beautifully between that day and the next. As Todd has already noted in his post, everything rolled out for us after that day fruitless of rides. Scouting out the "brotherhood camp" lead from our friendly librarian we found ourselves in a fully equipped State Park, complete with incredibly hospitable and friendly rangers, and a place to build a fire to stare into until about 1 or 2 in the morning. A good long stare into a fire is probably the most primal, yet best way to debrief yourself on the lessons of the day.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/25- Breaking the Compass cont'd

I went to sleep in that mindset, and woke up the next morning at the crack of dawn. It was really beautiful just laying there watching the colors of dawn slowly meld into a clear blue sky over an hour. Around 7:30 I figured I wasn't going back to sleep so I scooted out of my bivy and packed everything up.

Todd was still sleeping soundly so I set my pack nearby for him to see, then I tromped off to explore the woods with my two cameras. I took several pictures with both, found a pond nearby, and climbed a really tall tree. While hanging out at the top of it Todd awoke.

After I came down again, and he'd come out of his bivy, he started packing up to escape his dreaded Widow's nest for a grassy breakfast by the road. As we sat out there munching cold oatmeal and checking for ticks we finished our conversation from the day before.

It turned out while I was in my tree that morning he was having the same sorts of thoughts I was the night before. "What the hell were we doing?" We started to really go at the question. Why had we come East in the first place? To reconnect with these old friends and family before getting into heading west, and beyond, which both of us thought of as the beginning of the meat of our adventure. To sift that answer down to a more simple one, the purpose for coming East was people. As Todd put it, probably not just the people we intended to see either.

This simple revelation in intention suddenly exposed how my falling back into Walkin' Man mode was killing it. How this battle of methods was simply the puss of our confusion, the gross symptom exposing something gone awry within. This is precisely what I'm looking to follow and explore. There was no logical solution to answer my question of how to travel, why I'm out here, why I quit my job, left my friends and home to repeat something I've already done. It was that reclicking back into the flow of things that "solved" my unease.

In seeing that the east was about people I was able to see my insistence on walking was impatience to return to something in the past that was familiarly good, but inappropriate to the current situation. I was forcing it to get my fix. Having gotten a taste of it again, and unease suddenly encroaching with it, we were both able to turn and see it. Our weekend with Trent brought about a bevy of new perspectives and possible options. Bill and Laura injected hard questions to keep us thinking and open. Walking was keeping us from people, and it isn't the time for that now.

I'll stop getting all guru now, but writing this out helps me process all of this as well. The funny thing is that we set off after breakfast and had another walking day to get into the nearby town of Denton.

On entering Denton we began to feel the welcome of its inhabitants. Todd gave a grunted, "Oh Jesus", as a state trooper pulled into a lot just ahead of us. His irritation started to boil as he anticipated another IDing violation. We passed right by him, and a few hundred yards later his sirens went off and he pulled down a speeder. He could have cared less about us.

As soon as we started down the road into downtown Denton a guy swung by us with a leering look that could have been gawking locals at "them dirty hitchers". He swung a u-turn and pulled up in front of us with a Gatorade and two Capri Suns for us saying he saw us back a ways and we looked hot in the sun. We like Denton. Turns out its the birthplace of Fredrick Douglass.

More kindness and goodwill went our way as we wandered into the local library. The librarians there were all friendly and cheery letting us keep our packs behind the counter, charging our cell phones up, and giving us two hour guest passes each for the Internet. As we were leaving we chatted them up about what we were doing and where we could find the supplies we needed to restock on.

Shuffling through the quaint town, with markings of its ride through history from 1634 to today, we were picked up by a couple making their way to exactly where we were going; the Food Lion. It was a brief ride, but they were a hoot. It would've been a really fun ride down to Lewes had they been going that way.

Once dropped off in the lot we commenced our domestic chores gathering groceries, fresh bandages, etc. Around dusk we tried our hand at subtle hitching by sitting by the guard rail, but after half an hour or so decided that would be fruitless. We returned to the Food Lion thinking that might be better, but being Prom night in town, and just a weird vibe in general in the lot we kept going and made camp for the night.

All in all, with Todd's crapped out heel and our new take on realizing walking does not seem like the way right now, we've decided to go with the more sociable mode of hitching. More people oriented, and the balance between waiting and riding will theoretically get us to and through Jersey a little bit quicker and more enjoyably.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/24- Breaking the Compass

The process of starting to wake up earlier began. We were up and getting things going by about 10 or so, and on the road by 12:30. Our routine was beginning to form.

While packing I cleverly devised a much better method of tucking my bivy away that made everything in my pack quickly accessible, saved on space, and cut packing time from forty five minutes down to five. When I excitedly told Todd about this he gave me a blank look of what I interpreted as awe. Either that, or because my bright idea was suspiciously exactly like what he'd been suggesting I do since our test walk in March. I believe the former.

It was a really beautiful day on that back country road. Reminded me a lot of going through Georgia, actually. The days of The Walk were swarming around me, which was silently building some mental confusion.

It was the first continuous walking day, and I was back to my old routines. We'd walk a few miles, plop down for half an hour, then ramble on. We did this down our back road, then turned down 309 which was a hair busier, but only a hair, until we finally reached 404.

404 was the main road we were heading toward when that cop turned us around the day before. It is highway busy, and had a gas station on either corner of the intersection. We stopped in for reorientation and a bit of a rest. As far as the day was going I was feeling pretty good. Todd was seeming a bit beat up with his heel blistering, and feeling like a bit of an anchor since I was still bouncing along in my element.

This brought on the topic of the gas station stop the day before. As we shifted from resting at one gas station to moving to the other for water he adorned his serious topic face to address a concern we had, admittedly, been skirting since probably last summer, and one that even my friend Ang back in Denver had showed concern about.

It was the obviousness of the different modes of travel we're used to. There's actually quite a bit that is wrapped up in a simple difference like that which would drive into the very purpose of this excursion on a whole. Todd's initial concern that he mentioned was us stewing under petty grievances until it boils into a roadside explosion in the middle of nowhere and ends in a split. We've both been through this. Todd with Bruno on his bike tour as I found out in this discussion, and me with Angie for very different reasons just south of Wyoming. Those explosions ended those trips for both Todd and Angie.

These were the concerns but getting at the root took longer than that one talk. It was, however, a very good beginning. There are control issues involved that I think were hinted at, though we didn't squarely face them. At home, I'm a very easy tag along. I rarely care what we do or where we go as long as its interesting or fun. Out here I think of it as my time, and limited at that since I don't want to be doing this for life. As Ingrid would testify, I can become a little demanding, though my demeanor stays the same which can be confusing.

Todd too, I believe, thinks of this as his element. He has a way he likes to live and this trip, I believe, is a push on how to figure out how to do it sustainably. It is for me too, but I think his investment is more sincere for that reason. Either way, all of that boils down to figuring out a blend of our methods for a few reasons. One being the obvious of finding a common balance between our two headstrong approaches to this way of life to be able to stomach one another. The other, and more important, is to free ourselves from being stuck in our ways so that even if we do split ways later on, which we both foresee, that we'll have grasped and gained the others experiences.

That was just the beginning of the conversation. We left the gas station at that point with vague solutions of alternating methods by day. That seemed to me like an idea that would immediately fall apart as situations arose, but was a good starting point in the vain of compromise. We went just under two more miles and made camp in what Todd deemed a spider den.

That night, while Todd wrote, I lay awake thinking about what the hell I was doing. All point that I had seen back in Denver as I prepared to go was invisible. I ran through my head what was it that I intended to explore that I couldn't have done back there. I've already proven to myself I can walk long distances with heavy packs on my back. Which, dumb as that may sound, was absolutely something I needed to prove to myself. I had wanted to explore this notion of synchronicity. By all rights, if it is something that exists should be just as valid standing still following a business plan as much as it seems to be while traveling. Traveling just seems to heighten the instincts to tune into it easier. My worry started to grow, especially with my insistence that "the trip" didn't really start until we started walking on Tuesday, that I was just rehashing my glory days of the walk. This notion was abhorrent to me.

The reason I said "invisible" rather than vanished before is because the idea of going home again just didn't seem right either. It did occur to me as this surge of confusion came over me. I'll admit as well that the reason I rejected it at first was due to pride. Four weeks out and my travel bug is satiated is a blatant self lie. The underlying reason I rejected turning back was because I did indeed come out here to do something, I had just lost sight of it at the moment in all the hubbub of being back out here.

Often, in times like these, I remember a day I had in New York back in the early years of school there. I was battling extreme highs and extreme lows. My film career was just starting to go well with demand going up for me to work student sets. I was running a clothing store for some friends of mine that was starting to do quite well despite being way out of that sort of shopping district. I was living in a building where I knew everyone in it, my friends felt very much like a tight knit family, and as I walked around the city I knew people most places I went. Those were the good days, king of the town in the greatest city on Earth.

The very next day I'd be able to look at every one of those things I'd be beaming about the day before and convince myself they were all gross exaggerations of the true situation. Suddenly I was running some crappy clothing store that wasn't even turning a profit. I was only working occasional sets, and just student ones as a lowly boom operator, leaching off a deal made with my best friend to split any money we made because he had no appreciation for money anyway. I suddenly had a lot of distant acquaintances, but few friends. You get the idea. I could flip anything I was proud of around to be some bastardized version of an over hyped achievement.

That one day I recount, however, was when I was able to clearly see myself doing it. I still do it now, but when I start really having a go at myself for being a waste away, detached, or too listless, I don't try to recount anything good about myself, instead I just think on that realization and know not to do anything drastic, as I'm prone to, and just wait to see how I feel tomorrow.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/23- A Merger of Methods

I awoke at dawn. Then again around 10, and finally managed to get out of the bivy by probably 11. It was to be the beginning of a slow break over me that today would be another meander day. From the pre-noon wake up hour, I had high hopes of getting some good walking in.

Oddly Todd and I seem to rise at just about the same time. He crawled out of his bivy first, then slowly I followed. Once I'm out, however, I tend to be up and looking to do something, usually because its cold. After a bit of staring at the ground I started getting some oatmeal going and soon we were eating breakfast having talks about getting moving, and how nice a day it was. The skies were clear, it was starting to really warm up, and visions of wandering twenty miles or so started dancing in my head. Then we decided we really liked this campsite and lay back down again. That took some serious self motivation to pull ourselves out of.

By about 3pm we managed to have the dishes washed, the packs repacked (though mine a bit more top heavy than it had been), and we each popped a 5 hour energy thing like what my friend Karen had given me at my going away party. Those things are darn fine, darn fine indeed. Now full of gusto, well fed, well rested, bright sunny day out, and both of us itching to walk we hit the road with pistons in our step.

Three miles later, and one hour passed, we found ourselves sitting at a picnic table at the local community gas station center, sipping coffee and chatting it up with a guy named Keith. Keith loved the place, and he loved hearing about what we were up to. He would point out places around the gas station to camp then tell us about places nearby up the road to hunker down at. Which roads were good and where the people were nice and where not. It was good talking to Keith, but honestly, I was dying to just keep walking some more.

We had stopped in there with the idea of filling up our water. On the way through the parking lot coffee was tacked on. Once inside, we started chatting with quite a few people, Keith being one of them, and we became the hit spectacle of the day outside. I hadn't anticipated an hour or hour and a half long break three miles into a rather late day. Again, I was brought back to my thoughts of pushing Ingrid and rushing through things.

After about half an hour there I was ready to go. I was bouncing with energy after the coffee on top of all we'd eaten and the 5 hour energy thing. I was enjoying chatting, telling others who would ask about our trip, and Todd was doing a lot of adjustments with his blistering heel. It was just so nice out, and we'd done so little walking on a whole that I really just wanted to see what else was ahead of us. Where is the balance between enjoying a slow pace and just sputtering to a crawl. I must really be an annoying person to do these kinds of travels with. Ingrid, Angie comments? ...Spacey?

Anyway, we finally got going again setting off back down US-50. We made it maybe 200 yards before a cop made a U-turn parking right in front of us. Apparently its illegal to walk on the US highways here which of course merits an ID check in case we're terrorists. He then told us we had to walk back to the road we'd just come from at the gas station and proceeded to follow us in his car to protect us. You'd think he'd at least give us a ride.

So twenty minutes later we found ourselves back on the next picnic table over at that same goddamned gas station. Both of us were now irritated. I was because we were plopped down again having gone no where, and Todd was for the ID check which rightfully that cop had no business checking. Just tell us to get off the road and we will, end of annoyance please. Those sorts of things don't really fuss me too much, though. What was starting to get at me was that Todd was now contemplating the idea of staying at the gas station figuring it as a good place to catch a ride out of.

I half heartedly agreed recognizing that it was indeed a good place to do that, and it was a good place to camp if we didn't catch one, but I just really didn't feel at all like sitting around any more. I was trying to get into the spirit of looking for rides, but I think I came off looking more like a crack head with the shakes at a gas station picnic table. Todd soon also decided the vibe there had shifted and that walking wasn't such a bad idea. I think he also was picking up on my not so subtle agitation at just sitting and waiting. We did know going into it that this would be the challenge between us of finding a balance between methods. He has been anxious to see how I cope with a slow pace, I was curious to see how he'd handle me not wanting to sit at rest stops. Our first test, awww.

The road outta there was beautiful. Not just because we were strolling again, but because it was a small quiet country road lined with trees. Suddenly Todd wasn't near as agitated by being IDed, and I... well, I was walking again. What a geek I am.

We also noted a lesson in that experience. Both of us, when we went walking into the gas station the first time, had wanted to walk that calm country road, but were swayed away when Keith hinted it would pull us way out of our way. Neither of us missed the fact that twenty minutes after steering away from it, despite having walked all day on US-50 yesterday, we were right back in front of it with instructions to take it. The idea of the trip was to go with the gut, and we had stopped listening due to frustration.

We walked the road for maybe another hour through good old fashioned farm country. There were plenty of patches of woods, and after a bit we ducked into one and found a good hide away. Dogs were barking across the land, and Todd was unused to the close proximity of homes on the east coast so we were in a fairly worked up state of paranoia. Once we got dinner in us, though, we set up the bivys and relaxed a bit. He wrote up some posts while I broke out the Nashika and took some more pictures, then returned some birthday calls.

Tomorrow I have a feeling it'll finally be a really good walking day. Only time shall tell, though.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/22- A Little Wander Ways

We awoke to more pitter patter. The rain had returned. So much for hoping things would dry out over night. It was kind of a nice sound to awaken to and gave us the unspoken excuse to lie in until noon.

The combination of our walking with the weather had me thinking of Ingrid again and our travails through Georgia. I had just seen the day before that Melody, from The Feed Bag in Georgia, had signed the new guestbook as well. Through out the day as Todd and I sauntered along Ingrid hovered closely in my thoughts.

One of the things that kept bouncing around in my head was that I felt bad for pushing her so hard as we walked. With all our futzing around of breaking camp by probably one, grabbing coffee and rearranging things at that 7/11, and a long stop over at the post office we walked a total of about six miles. I would hear Ingrid's voice in my head mocking me and the angry driver of the Fung Wa Bus to Boston yelling "Ten mile!" This was my intended goal for us daily when we walked. Its very clear to me now that she was right all along. I was rushing through something that should have been savored, as she had wanted to.

So back to the morning of slowly crawling out of our packs. By the time we did, and were trying to strategize repacking the mess we'd made, we started to feel more rain. It turned out to be a false alarm but did get us moving a little bit.

Soon we arrived back at the 7/11 Todd had mentioned us stopping at the night before. More clouds were moving in, so Todd plopped down to dig out his rain fly. He offered to treat me to a coffee if I fetched him one too, so I set off to my task with his 15lb man-purse of change.

Sitting down on the curb at 7/11 messing with packs and drinking coffee was an exercise in slowing down for me. As I said I had unintentionally done my best to run Ingrid through Georgia in fear of running out of funds and here I was now trying to do a similar trip with the idea of not rushing this time. Todd was my anchor in this, and a prime reason as to why I thought he and I would balance each other out well.

We moved on about half a mile to the post office. Todd had made his decision on which of his dueling bivys to keep, as well as had some other dead weight to go home. Dropping down in front of the building we orchestrated things as people came and went eyeballing us in curiosity. One guy really took to us, who could really talk, and spent about an hour telling us of his travels, travels of people he knew, and asking about ours. I liked the little guy, and he gave me some good company while Todd did his thing.

Once we moved on past that it was probably about three or four. We had kept planning on cooking some oatmeal but kept waiting on a park to pop up for a place to do it. The sky kept changing its mind on us so we were often stopping and either shedding or donning rain gear. We also were waved to by a guy poking out his front door who yelled he'd look for us in an hour on 404, a road we've been planning to take. That got us excited about maybe catching a ride so the one park we did pass we passed up afraid he'd miss us if we were off the road.

By the end of the day we found a nice little camp spot and were famished. It took us a bit of finding "the perfect spot" but once we did we laid everything out and had our first camp cooked meal; rice with Hamburger Helper without the hamburger. We felt fat and good as Todd put it once we were done. Nestling away in our respective bivys I spent the rest of the night catching up on posts under a beautiful night sky.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/21- First Steps

Happy 34th, Gary Balela. Long story, and not really worth telling.

Since getting off my feet back in Colorado City, CO I've been anxious to get right back on them again. I loved riding with Devin and Leif, and catching up with Trent, Bill, and Laura, but my real desire for this trip is to be out on the road in my own space. We packed up our things, said goodbye to Laura again since she had come home again, and were on our way to true homelessness. In fact, that was the first thing Todd made acknowledgment of was that we really had no place to go now. No veggie bus, no friend's guest room or couch. We had packs and we actually needed them now.

As Todd noted we returned to our little book store/coffee shop for some bottomless cup. Then shuffled a bit further down the road to lay in some grass at DuPont Circle. Finally we meandered to a bus we just barely found for a cheap ride out of town and over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Todd was occupied most of this time by writing posts and listening to his MP3 player. I spent just about all of that time just sitting and thinking. After all, that was one of the biggest things I wanted from this journey was the time to really just sit and think clearly. One thing I realized is that getting to the point of clear thinking that I want is probably that end destination I've muddled through articulating since we came up with the notion of traveling this year. It reminds me of what I've heard was the real significance of fire to the cavemen. All day they run around hunting or doing their work to survive the day like all the other animals. At night, they just went to sleep. With fire they were given a reason to stay up when there was nothing to do for the day, so they just stared at the fire enamored. It was their one time when nothing needed to be thought over so their brains roamed. Soon art showed up on their walls and societies came with it. This is my time to sit and let my brain really roam and explore.

As Todd has already said, we got off the bus at a cute little Park n' Ride by a draw bridge crossing the Kent Narrows. As we settled into our packs with that feeling of finally being out and walking again settling in, I watched almost transfixed for a moment as those who shared our bus were magnetically drawn to their cars. It was like they were on strings sliding right into place where they would then continue zooming home for supper. That strange "outside" feeling finally hit me again that I remembered from my walk. That oddity of seeing people doing their daily routine, as I had done before, but feeling completely removed from it. Almost like visiting an exotically different culture and watching those exotic locals grocery shop.

This is a mentality I want be wary of in myself. Its funny that I just was talking to Trent about the book Anna Karenina because that mentality is described beautifully by Tolstoy through the character Levin. Levin would often retreat for months to his country province that he owned and ran as landlord. He was a very socially conscious man so he spent much of that time working out solutions to the hardships of the peasants life and such issues. When he'd return to Moscow to hob nob with his socialite and political friends he would tell them his theories, and even as the thoughts came to his head to make the words to speak them he would realize how ridiculous his ideas actually were. I feel that way often.

I do believe strongly that to fix a problem you need to be in it to tinker with it, unless your solution is to just not bother with it any more. That philosophy may make it seem like I'm a hypocrite for going on this trip. I don't know that I see it as that because I don't see that what I'm striving for here is a better stable daily routine. What I'm after right now is solid explanations for these apparent metaphysical questions. That empirical evidence. Once I feel satisfied there, then I'll start working out my coffee shop for that good stable routine, and hopefully a family too.

There you go, didn't think I'd be spouting a thesis in this post.

To get back to the day, Todd and I finally set off walking, and when we set off we were strolling by a gorgeous bay and beachish establishments. A good way to commence things. That lasted until we bedded down for the night in a patch of woods by the highway.

I would like to clarify something in Todd's post about finding this patch. What I'd said, in what he deemed a D&D language, was that "we should go now while there are no cars about." We had just been saying that we should duck into the woods where no one can see so no one messes with us. When he just stood by the guard rail smoking a cigarette I thought maybe he was doing something sneaky of his own so I just plowed into the woods to find a nice spot. This was why I was in a tree when he found me, because I had found a spot, but then couldn't find him. We'll get it down.

We did, however, build our little lean-to fort simply to geek out on the fact that we were finally camping. We tried getting really fancy and technical with it too until we heard the town sirens go off and realized the sky moving in was black, and that this fort actually needed to work. That threw us into a bit of a panic, which resulted in a backpack explosion.

Diving into our bivvies to stay dry, then frantically ripping the packs apart to find things like the crank weather radio and flashlights, things ended up completely disorganized. The wind then kicked up, new rescue vehicle sirens started going off, and the rain came down to the sound of our scratchy radio saying something about severe winds up to 65 Mph.

I felt this needed documentation. Whenever in a stress/panic situation that could possibly damage life and limb, break out the photos, the video recorder, and start running audio. I did just that. You too can be the next dipshit who gave up everything to get killed by nature and have a movie made of it. I like to have my story told accurately, so I document just about everything I do. Please don't equate me to a Nazi for that.

About 15 minutes later the rain slowed to a drizzle and the wind went away. A little while after that I was staring up at stars unfettered by any clouds in the sky. I lay there for probably a few hours excited to be out again before I eventually trailed off to sleep and had a weird dream in Spanish, of all things.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

4/20- A Happy Birthday With Bill & Laura

I will confess, I was nervous about how the social mixing was going to go with Todd, Bill, and Laura. What ensued was almost exactly what I was hoping would happen, but was afraid wouldn't. It took no time to get into a debate on social politics and Bill and Todd pressed into disagreement mode for the first part of the night. Slowly they came to the realization that they agreed with each other on quite a bit of what they were defending and preaching to each other. I know the night was enjoyable for Todd, I'm hoping the same was true for Bill and Laura. I think it was.

The strange thing about my friendship with them is that they are very much outside my other circle of friends. I met them in New York in my last year at school, and they were my escape route from film when I was having a hard time with my business partner and best friend, Dave. Essentially they proposed opening a business together when they moved to Denver so I jumped at the opportunity and fled there within a few weeks. In fact, that was the beginning of my road into coffee. The odd thing about this friendship is that Todd is the second of my friends to meet them after ten years, the first being Dave for about ten minutes. My sister also met them, but other than that they are a mysterious entity to the rest of my friends and family of whom they only hear.

The main point behind that whole shpiel was that they also bring a very contrasted view point to my attention. Both Bill and Laura themselves have very different view points to each other. Laura reminds me quite a bit of my mom in that she is a self made woman, in the same field oddly, and thrives on projects to work on. Bill loves his luxuries, studies, and theorizing. He doesn't shy from questioning things that don't make sense to him, and is open to receive foreign answers as long as they can be backed up. This has been much of our friendship of exploring our opposite ways of living.

There were a few things about this that I found fascinating that night when they treated Todd and I to dinner for my 33rd. The first was watching Todd fall into that exploration himself as he debated with Bill. The second was realizing how much of a control freak I am. I started seeing how on edge I was watching this debate unfold and thinking if I should try and change the conversation to avert the possibility of a clash. The moment I thought that I became upset with myself, since, when I met one of their friends nine years ago in Colorado, I had started broaching a controversial subject over dinner and was shut down as being inappropriate conversation, not by them, but by the friend. I was pissed then, and realizing that now I was the one thinking of quieting for niceties it exposed the control freak in me. I then began looking over how in the past few years I have manipulated who meets who of my scattered friends network based on who I thought would mesh with who. Bill and Laura being probably my most conservative of friends, they haven't met anyone else which, then stifles a possibly interesting exchange of view points. To my defense, though, they have generally been living in places like England, Israel, and DC where I hadn't really known anyone anyway.

Anyway, long story short we had another really good evening of thought provoking, in depth conversation; plus some South Park. As Todd mentioned in his post, I also tried to muddle through explaining the metaphysical angle, but did a crack pot job of it. I'm running off observations and theories right now, and to approach Bill on the subject I'll be needing empirical evidence, which is what I'm after for myself anyway.

Click here for Todd's perspective.