Up early without a bear attack. Whew. Back on the trail with the desire to make it all the way into downtown Richmond. We walked hard in the morning. We walked about 7 miles before stopping.
At our first stop, we decided to lay out our tents in the sun and let them dry from the morning dew that was on them when we woke up. We were on a boardwalk and it had a railing that we hung our tents on. While we were resting a construction worker came over to work on one of the boards that was bent up.
He asked what we were doing and we were talking about it. We got to introductions and he said his name is Mr. Tuesday. He is African and his real name is hard for many Americans to pronounce but it literally means ‘male that was born on a Tuesday’ so he just goes with that. I think he said that he was from Ghana but I can’t remember now. Anyway, he was really nice and had great energy. Mr. Tuesday!
Our next stop, after walking more miles on the curvy and hilly country bike trail, was a little restaurant called the Fork on 5. The trail ran along Hwy 5. The restaurant was really cool. An old record machine playing and a bunch of handcrafted merchandise from local artists. The woman who owned the place was very kind. She made us the best breakfast sandwich that we have had on this trip. She thought what we were doing was great and she took photos of us before we left and she said that she would post them on her facebook page to help get our message out.
The rest of the day was long and hot. We had a 30 minute stretch of a rain shower. We were able to get our rain gear on before everything got wet so it wasn’t a big deal. It passed quickly and then became really humid. We really wanted to make it to our goal so we kept pushing. The heat was getting to me but I fought through it.
We got closer to the city and walked through an old tobacco warehouse district that has now been turned into fancy smancy lofts. The trail followed the river and it had some great views. It was a really cool city. A lot of old buildings and a ton a awesome murals. It seemed to have a really great street art scene. I loved walking through the cool streets. We passed the old train station and you could just sense how awesome it must’ve been in the days when people used trains to travel.
We came up on the State Capitol building. That was our target goal for the day. We made it just in time for a huge storm that came in. As soon as we got there we were able to find an awning to get under and then the bottom fell out. It rained hard and even hailed for a good hour and a half.
We didn’t have to wait long for Sarah. Sarah is a friend of a friend from back home and she was helping us with our car. She came to pick me up and bring me to our support car and then I drove back to get Stick and load up our things. I was hoping to spend more time with Sarah but the rain was kind of putting a drag on things. We were tired anyways after walking for 23 miles.
We loaded up the car and then headed to Aline and Kitty’s house. This was a big deal for me. I have been waiting on this since before we started. So introducing Aline and Kitty is a long story:
When I started my last walk on March 13th, 2016 in Lewes, Delaware there was another person who started a cross-country walk at the same place on the same damn morning. Literally less than an hour before I started my walk. Her name is Erin and we ended up staying at the same couchsurfing.com house that night. We played leapfrog for a couple of weeks staying with each other a few times here and there and then Erin hurt her foot and couldn’t continue. I was bummed that I lost my road buddy but we stayed in touch. She healed up and got back out in 2017 and successfully completed her cross-country walk. Anyway, Aline is Erin’s cousin and Kitty is Aline’s life partner. They were there the morning that Erin started her walk so they saw me and knew about me through Erin.
THEN…. when I got back home from that walk and started up Freedom to Grow, I asked some people for help designing the logo. Aline is a rockstar designer and came up with the awesome Freedom to Grow logo that you probably know by now. I knew that we would be going by their house on this walk as I was planning it so I have been excited to formally meet them for a very long time.
We rolled up and it was all exciting saying our hellos. They made us an awesome pasta dinner and we stayed up talking and playing music on guitars. A great evening but an early night as we were really tired.
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