Yesterday Stick was having a bad day well today it was my turn. He was feeling better, thankfully. I was having a hard time though. Because of the storm last night, I had to rush to set everything up and nothing was in it’s usual pattern. So packing up took longer than usual and for some reason that aggravated me. The mud where I had my tent stakes in had pretty much turned to concrete after all the rain and I had a really hard time getting them out. I finally got situated and we hit the road.
We walked through a small town called Bowling Green. We were hoping to grab breakfast here but there was nothing. We walked through the main drag and the town has definitely seen better days. It was still very pretty though. Just no breakfast.
A man who was out in his yard cleaning up trees from the storm damage walked over and asked if we could wait while he runs in a grabs his camera. Of course we’ll wait. Ya never know who he will tell about us that might need some hope. We talked to him about the walk and about our cause. He said that he will share it on the town page and was very excited about it.
Stick asked him about breakfast lol. One track mind when he is hungry. He asked if there was anywhere in town that served food. The man said nothing was opened except for a McDonalds that was out of the way. I will never go out of my way to eat at a McDonalds. Never. There was a gas station at the end of town though and we decided to settle for that.
We walked on and right before we got to the gas station, the man drove up to find us to give us $10 to buy breakfast. Amazing. Mr. Bill Butler from Bowling Green. We will never forget you 🙂
Unfortunately, the gas station cooler was broken so no cold drinks but they did have some fresh cheese danishes. That served us well. We may be dramatic at times, but we’re really easy to please when it comes down to it.
We left and hit the road out of town and into the in-between.
We kept hearing machine gun fire. Yeah. Really.
There is an Army base that we walked through called Fort A.P. Hill. It’s Army Special Ops training. Pretty cool stuff. We saw a few convoys of huge trucks carrying 19 year olds with machine guns. Some of them waved and honked as they passed. It was awesome.
It was gearing up to be another really hot day. We were drenched in sweat and must’ve looked like we were about to die because the buzzards kept flying around us. It was hard to keep going but we had nothing else to do. Standing in the sun wouldn’t solve our problem with the heat so we just kept walking.
We came upon a restaurant called Hornes. We talked to a truck driver while we were wiping off our sweat and changing our hats to be somewhat presentable before walking into the restaurant. She was hilarious and supportive as well. She said she drives from Miami to Maine all the time and couldn’t believe we were walking it.
Once we cooled down a little, we walked in and took a seat. The staff were all very smiley and kind. The other patrons were kind too. It seemed as if the whole room was looking at us but not in a bad way. I think they saw us pull up with strollers that say “walking across america” on them. Worthy of a few looks indeed.
First things first, I ordered a root beer float. It was amazing. We then ordered food and while we were eating the waitress came over to talk to us about the walk. She said someone just paid our tab and told her that we were walking. They left before we could thank them. Amazed, it took us a few moments to respond to her. We told her about the walk and about the constant support and kindness that we experience along the way. She wouldn’t even let us tip her. An amazing experience at an amazing roadside gem. Stick and I can’t believe all of this stuff. It sure makes our jobs of walking a whole lot easier though.
We walked off the lunch pretty quickly after a few more miles of high heat and high hills. It was rough. We got to a point where we were very overheated and had to stop in the shade to cool down. We unrolled our tents and laid them out in the sun as they were still really wet from last night. Drying them off in this heat shouldn’t have been a hard task at all but the wind was getting to Stick. For some reason, his tent and tarp wanted to take flight. He was getting very frustrated. It was ugly watching all of this take place. We must’ve looked insane. We got it done and then sat back down to cool down some. Some cold water and some shade and he felt a little better.
We were only about 3 miles from our destination at this point. We were going to meet someone to help us go get our car so we didn’t want to keep them waiting. We got down and dirty and just blasted through the last few miles. We met up with Chris at our end point and we loaded our stuff in his truck and he drove us an hour back to Richmond to pick up our car. We would’ve kept going to D.C. and gotten it later but with so many storms approaching we really wanted to have the car available to make things easier on us.
Chris was awesome. I had been speaking with his wife, Sher, and she was able to arrange for this to happen. They saved our butts. We got down to the car and got in and the first thing Stick said was that he needed food haha. We drove to an Arby’s and ate while trying to sort out lodging for the night. We couldn’t camp with the threat of more serious storms.
We called a few hotels and everything was sold out. It was weird. We finally found a place and made a reservation but hadn’t paid yet. On the hour long drive back, my brother Cameron (AKA Cambrodia) called me and asked if we needed help with a hotel room since storms were coming. What a bad ass. And great timing. While we have the money to do it, it hurts as I am doing this off of my earnings from working all summer last year and Stick has a very limited income. We are trying to save all of the money raised for Freedom to Grow.
Things like paying for a room for us are a huge help and always appreciated. It was great to hear from Cameron. He paid for two nights for us and wouldn’t let us say no about it.
We got there and we were spent. I showered and was out within minutes after laying down.
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