Woke up in a nice hotel room with no one yelling at us. It was great. We packed up and went to Waffle House across the street. A little taste of home. The staff there were very interested in our walk and had all kinds of fun questions while we ate. Domino got plenty of attention from them too.
It was a very foggy and humid morning but the clouds were keeping the heat of the sun off of us. We had a mile and a half until we hit the Delaware line. We made it in no time and stopped at the welcome sign for a picture. This is a very special state to me. It is the first state that I ever walked across. I started my other cross-country walk in Delaware. I have some good friends that live here that I met during my first few days.
A few miles later, we met up with one of those friends. Dawn called all the news and invited all her friends and came out to walk with us. She went all out to help us reach more people. As soon as she got there, one of the news stations that she called pulled up and interviewed us.
Then we walked on an awesome bike path through Newark, DE. We met another one of her friends, Joe. They walked with us for most of the day. It was so awesome. We stopped and talked to people here and there and they wouldn’t let us pay for anything all day. Also, Dawn booked us a hotel room for the night so we knew that we had a nice place to go to at the end of the day.
They walked with us all the way to Newport and then it was back to just me, stick, and domino. We were warned by locals that we were about to walk through some high crime areas. We weren’t that worried about it but stayed on our toes just in case.
We always smile and wave to everyone, no matter what they look like or what they are doing. We could tell that we were in a rough area but didn’t change a thing. We were getting a lot of really good engagement from people who we passed. People were talking to us and getting excited and taking pictures and everything. We talked to a few people with visible track marks on their arms. They were very supportive of what we were doing. I ran over some harm reduction tips for them and they appreciated that I wasn’t giving them a hard time about them being users.
No one gave us a hard time at all. All smiles and waves. No drama. Good stuff. We were walking and heard a horn honking like crazy and turned around and saw a car swerving towards us and stopping in the middle of the road. My dear friend Joyce jumped out of the car and gave us the biggest hug ever. She yelled out at some people nearby, “you need to come over and meet these guys!” They actually did come over and we got to tell them our message. Amazing.
We stopped and talked to Joyce for a little while. It wasn’t long enough though. I wish we could’ve visited for longer but we had to keep on going. I love Joyce so much. She is such a great supporter of us and our mission. So fun!
We walked into downtown Wilmington and stopped to talk to a few more people along the way. All really awesome conversations. When we walked into the hotel lobby we definitely turned some heads. We talked to more people about our walk and cause. It was a really good awareness day. So many people were approachable and interested in talking today. It was awesome.
We checked in and then our friends Jen and Maryanne came to bring us our car. It was a huge deal and so amazing that they were able to do it for us. They even filled the gas tank. Just too much.
We went to drop off Maryanne and then went to Jen’s house where they had a big dinner planned for us. It was so good and the house was awesome. We didn’t want to leave but we had to get back to the hotel to get rest to do it all again tomorrow!
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