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.
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