Baltimore 2B: or not 2B 9-30-08

Ok, an answer to a common question. What do you eat?

On an average walking day, I eat about 3 energy bars, one energy drink, a ton of water, some type of huge meat-filled sandwich item for lunch with whatever accompanies it and as much of whatever I can get for dinner.

My days off however are different, I try to load up as much as possible.

Today I ate:

2 sandwiches (turkey and chicken)
1 rice crispies treat
1 entire bag of fun sized snickers
1 bag of chips
1 lb of sesame and pineapple chicken
half-pound of pepper beef steak
half-pound of noodles
2.5 fillets of salmon
some brownie bits
2 bowls of pesto pasta
tons of water
bit of salad
1 glass, okay, 2 glasses of wine.

Why am I writing this? I'm hungry again and can't sleep. I am toying with raiding the fridge, but it's two floors down in a dark house that's not mine . . . hmmmm

Baltimore II: Baltimost 9-30-08

Alright, when last we met I was tired. Now, I am full of Asian cuisine and rested. Two days ago I was couchsurfing and I offered my host (Hereafter referred to as Free) an opportunity to come with me in his car and film for the documentary. Things lined up right for him for a few months and I thought I'd give it a shot.

Yesterday morning I was readying my gear and setting out from his house when he told me he would join me on Thursday. I have a buddy! This is very important, I could explain why, but rather I will just tell you what happened yesterday.

Shortly after I left Free's place I noticed I had a flat tire. After the bridge I had been worried this would happen, I was just happy and amazed that it lasted to get to Free's house in the first place. In spite of the flat, I was so happy that things were coming together, i was so happy to have someone coming along that I couldn't stop singing loudly. Sometimes as I passed by a building both a bystander and I would be startled by each others presence and my songs. It didn't stop me. I checked my navigation stuff, the nearest Bicycle shop was 24 miles ahead of me. I called Free. While I kept moving for about an hour and a half on my flat, it was slow and damaging to my tire I'm sure. Then Free showed up, took the tire and got it fixed. It took a while because of the travel and having to wait for the shop worker to show up, but without him there is no telling how I would have gotten it done. It was like a serendipitous verification of my decision to invite him along.

During this time a policeman came and questioned me about who I was and what I was doing. I told him, he seemed a bit incredulous but friendly, advised me to wait further off the road and left me with a look that said, "Nutty Californian." I got moving but didn't go to far before my cell phone died and I had to stop to charge it for a while. By this time I was 3 hours later than I had wanted to be. I called and let my host know I'd be late, he was very nice and said not to worry what time I showed up.

I tried to pick up my pace anyway. About 20 miles in my leg started hurting. 31 miles in, my front wheel popped off.. with 4.5 miles to go and it being dark out (8 p.m. exactly). I couldn't be mad at Cherry (the Chariot's name) though, she'd been beaten to a pulp on the bridge and still carried me 31 miles into the day. I decided to go on without trying to fix the wheel since I had only 4.5 miles left, which seems very short these days. I was interrupted in my reflection by a man warning me that someone up the street had just had a gun held to their head when they were with their child and to be careful walking or if I was camping around the area. He also told me that a girl had been hit in the back of the head with a 2x4. I assured him that I was on my way to an actual home.

I suppose especially with the broken carrier I looked like I was homeless. Perhaps if the neighborhood was as dangerous as all that, my homeless look was my protection. Nevertheless, I listened for footprints behind me.

4.5 miles isn't bad . . . unless it's filled with hills and you have no front wheel. Let's go to the imagination factory! First, imagine you've walked 31 miles, still with me? Good. Now, hold your arms slightly out in front of your hips. Find a friend to pull up on them and try to keep them in the same spot. Really, you're doing an excellent job, just a little more. Now, walk for an hour and a half up and down hills, and remember, keep your friend pulling on your arms. Congratulations! You just imaginated the end of my day. During the last 15 minutes I got a little light-headed. What surprised me was that I still felt like I could keep going.

I guess my body is adjusting, or I have broken the part of my brain that tells you to stop doing stupid things. Either way, I win!

Baltimore, MD 9-29-08

Miles since last blog: 35.4

Today was just ridiculous. I keep expecting that I will have an uneventful day where I just walk and show up somewhere, eat dinner and go to bed and struggle for something to do my daily blog about, but that just isn't the case.

With that said, the events of today have left me extremely exhausted and I have only the strength to write something totally different and fill you in about today, tomorrow.

I've been waiting to do this until after I had left Baltimore, but I simply can't wait anymore. Much thanks to the Winick's for putting roofs over my head in 3 separate states now and inviting me into their lovely homes. They have been generous in donations, spirit, companionship, and so much more. Without them this first month would have been a drastically different and much harder process. Who knew there was a family out there that was so nice, I think it's because they are from Connecticut, where the only word I could think of to describe anything was 'nice.'

I have made so many connections on this trip, some I am convinced will stay for a long time if not for life, I sincerely hope I can pay back all the kindness and hope that people have given me by living up to and above their expectations. But no pressure.

Thanks Winick's and everyone else who has in some way contributed to my success, I couldn't do it without you.

Havre de Grace III: Grace Under Water 9-28-08

Well, so far I have been lucky.  Even though I said I would be staying one night, my hosts let me stay for three nights due to injury and weather respectively, and the weather outside, just for the record, is frightful.  But there is no delightful fire, delightful hot chocolate on the other hand was available to me and I delighted in every drop of it.

I also found a somewhat kindred soul in the man I am staying with which is nice. I am trying to convince him to accompany me for a ways on my journey, but we'll see how that turns out, I could use the help with my (surprisingly) many non-walking tasks. I have a place to sleep inside through the end of the month which is amazing, but looking at the map of hosts my camping time is running up on me fast and I will be extremely glad for my NJ friends one-man tent as the weather turns against me. I've talked with him on the phone since and it seems a lot of the equipment he gave me was from when he was cycling across the country. He had made it pretty far in separate runs before he stopped. So it is easy to understand some of his investment in my finishing, if for any reason I couldn't finish I would hope that someone would. This week won't be bad though, I have only one 30+ mile day planned this week which will make my mom, and quite possibly my legs, very happy.

It continually amazes me with my experiences how quickly you become a part of a household, maybe not a relative, but welcomed in so completely and with such care. I will be (couch)curfing my way through the other side of Washington DC from here and I look forward to every experience more and more. Looking back I wish I could have spent more time the places I've been, particularly since I am so much more comfortable now in this situation. I look forward to a time when I can have a house and host travelers wild-eyed with schemes of adventure and discovery. It is nice for me to be that vicarious conduit to another world for others who long for it but are otherwise happy or stuck in their lives.

I am falling in love with couchsurfing. I know it sounds weird and scary with the strangers and because we are such a society of distrust and fear, but just for your own peace of mind, check out the sight, sign up, meet people on it if only for coffee. I hope you will be as blown away as I am by the incredible goodness that is still left in a world where we are bombarded constantly with worries of evil.

And on that note, I'm off to Baltimore . . .

Havre de Grace II: Return to Grace 9-27-08

Ahhhhh, aren't days off wonderful?  Or mostly anyway.  Well it looks like I have a place to stay tomorrow night again (where I am right now) which is good because a storm is coming in.  Then next week is sunshine for days, great traveling weather and by then I'll be looking forward to getting back on the road.

It felt great to rest and around 4:30 I even got a visit from an old friend from Prague who I was very close with.  There are times when this walk feels great and like there is nothing else I should be doing more, but for every path chosen there is one untaken.  

As much as this adventure calls to me, there is a part that is lonely at times.  It's not so bad most of the time  When you meet someone who you have a connection with or you see someone who reminds you of times with people in your life who cared (that you have actual face to face contact with) and then you have to leave them behind you again, well, it spikes that loneliness right into you.  It's not that I don't want that life, I do, I want friends and family and a life that's more permanent.  Still, there's a part of me that needs to do this or I'll never be able to devote myself to that life the way I should be able to.  

It makes for a very nice and very, very difficult day to go through this.  You are always thankful for the connection on the road and you try to be strong and leave or watch the other person leave, but afterwards, that's very difficult.  If the bridge tested my body and mind days like these test my heart.  Wow, that sounded cheesy.  

I need tomorrow off, but it will be good to get back on the road, focused and in that meditative peaceful state of perpetual movement.  After all this is over which will I opt for?  Settle down and form long lasting relationships or more adventure?  I don't know yet.

Havre de Grace, MD 9-26-08

Miles since last blog:  38 (+++?)

There are barely words to describe today.  I am happy to be staying in a bed again, and I think I may just stay for two nights to get some rest.  A friend from Prague might come meet me for the afternoon since they live in the same state.  That will be nice.

But back to today.  I am a pretty amiable guy for the most part, I like people of almost all different kinds which at times even surprises me given my past feelings towards humanity as a whole.  There are still a few things I hate.  One is people who yell or honk at me, but I'll talk about that another time.  Two is any road that has Mount, Mountain, Hill, Summit or Grade in it for obvious reasons.  And finally, I despise bridges.  They are always trouble.  Today for example both my navigation systems told me to cross a bridge which is approximately two miles long.  

This bridge did not have a place to walk on it.  Actually, none of the bridges in the area do.  Normally, I am walking across bridges that my nav systems tell me I can't because I can see on the satellite pictures from google earth that they do have sidewalks and not walking over them adds 12 miles to my journey.  I prefer it that way.  I'm not going to say that it was fortunate that the bridge was under construction, but it was . . . under construction.  I decided rather than go I don't even know where to cross the river, I would cross in the construction zone since no one was working and at the end of the day I was only 4 miles from my bed.  How could I stop?  Well I did, and often, but only to catch my breath.

I'll spare you the gory details (suffice to say there was many wooden planks involved and moving of heavy things like generators), but that 2 mile bridge took me two hours and fifteen minutes to cross and I was working hard the whole time.  So today, though my knee hurt from mile 12, I kept going, and now, my knee hurts sure, but so do my arms, back, the rest of my legs and my psyche.  Lucky, except for my knee, the rest actually will be better tomorrow.

Wilmington, DE 9-25

Miles since last blog:  29.9

Texas school of Medicine as I know it has one remedy for everything:

"Walk it off."

Wind knocked out of you?  Walk it off.

Asthma attack?  Walk it off.

Cancer?  Walk it off.

Hurt leg?  Walk it off.

So today, that's what I did.  The first 16 miles were swell, but shortly after that my leg muscle which kept me an extra day in Philly tried again to assert itself through mutiny.  But I would have none of it, or rather, I would have some of it.  I did schedule into my day a break for pain, which coincided nicely with rain and lunch, but I still hit my goal for the day.  Also to be perfectly honest, I enjoyed the extra day in Philly and miss my new friend, so the leg didn't do that much damage.

Tomorrow I have a slightly more difficult choice.  Do I try for a long day to have a place to sleep and get back on schedule (which no one cares about but a tiny psychotic portion of my brain), or do I go a relatively short 25 mile day and camp in the rain?  Still trying to decide, I suppose the point is moot if I don't get a response on Couchsurfing.  Nevertheless, I need to decide when to set my alarm clock now because I am fading fast from a delicious pie and sausage induced coma.  Thank you couchsurfing, and awesome family who gave me my own room.  Now I can sleep just as soon as I finish this bl . . .