We had an interesting morning. We were eating breakfast at McDonald’s and got a message from a guy who has walked across the country twice and wanted to meet us. He carries around a pole that has hundreds of flags attached to it and he collects signatures. Each flag has 1,000 signatures and he has 678 flags. His goal is to reach one million signatures. He came out to meet us so that we could sign it. So freaking cool.
We met up with him and spent about an hour together. We signed the thing and took pictures with it. While we were talking, a woman on a weird bike rolled by. She was loaded down with gear so we assumed that she may be doing a long ride. We stopped her to talk and she came over and signed the thing too. She was on a long ride and her bike was really cool. It had a seat and the pedals were up by the front. It had a smaller wheel in front. I can’t describe it but it was way cooler than all those other regular looking bikes.
We all went our different ways and I caught myself laughing at how awesome life is. I just got to sign the most-signed object in the world. My sister would’ve freaking loved this one. Good stuff.
We got back on the trail and were having a really hard time. It was muddy as hell so we were spending a lot of energy just to go slower than usual. It got worse and worse. We were fed up. After about 10 miles on the trail we found a way out. We stopped at a restaurant and spent some time researching roads on Google maps.
There was a way and it ended up saving us a whole day’s worth of walking. Sweet! I love a good short cut. We took it and it panned out beautifully. Wide shoulders and sidewalks the whole way. A lot more resources and a lot less bugs. Life is good.
We passed by a giant Buddha statue and walked up to it. It was a meditation sanctuary just off the side of a busy road. A very peaceful place. A few miles up the road a man stopped us and gave us each a Hindu bible. I’ve read the Holy Bible and the Quran. I tried to read the Book of Mormon that was given to me on my last walk but couldn’t get through that one. I’m really looking forward to reading this book. The man who gave it to us was very nice. Good stuff.
We stopped at a Jiffy Lube at our 20 mile mark. There was a nice field behind it so we asked the manager if we could camp there. He said he’d think it over and for us to hang out for a minute while he wrapped things up.
While we were waiting, two girls drove up to get their car done and they saw our carts and nearly started crying. One girl lost her brother. We all talked for quite a while and then took pictures. I believe it was definitely our siblings that brought us together. There were too many factors in the equation to call it coincidence.
We still hadn’t heard back from the manager so I started looking at the map for other options. I noticed that we were pretty close to Highland Park. A town where I’ve been in contact with the City Council President for quite some time. I called her and she said that she had a place that we could camp. We decided to walk the extra miles and go ahead and get to Highland Park.
We arrived 3 days before schedule but it’s all good. It allows us to take most of the day off tomorrow to do some serious awareness work. The whole community is welcoming us and our message. We are excited about tomorrow.
We got to the church that said we could camp there and set up our tents. Then we went across the street to grab some dinner. While we were eating, we got to meet the pastor of the church. A great guy and an awesome ministry. They have a really great community approach to where they have many different outreach programs. They do a lot of work with homeless veterans and immigrant refugees. Very good stuff.
We are looking forward to a great day tomorrow in this great town.
Love your blog. I hope you write a book about this adventure. I’ll buy the first one! Anxious to read day 130 and more updates.